Sunday, April 24, 2011

Carrot Cake sans Carrots



Happy Easter and Happy Spring! If, by chance, you’ve just been visited by the most famous rabbit of all (and I don’t mean Bugs) you might want to take a moment to reflect on the Big Bunny’s favorite food – The Carrot. Here’s a little carrot trivia to crunch on:

  • The carrot originated in Afghanistan, but the varieties grown there were purple and yellow. The ubiquitous orange root didn’t come until later.


  • Both the ancient Greeks and Romans cultivated carrots.


  • In 1607 the settlers at Jamestown in Virginia introduced carrots to North America.


  • Thomas Jefferson – who loved vegetables – harvested 18 bushels of carrots at his Monticello home in 1814.


  • The state of California is the top producer of fresh carrots in the United States.


  • The carrot consists of 87 percent water.


  • Beta carotene gives the carrot its orange color, and the carrot delivers 30 percent of the Vitamin A in the U.S. diet.


  • One cup of raw carrots contains about 50 calories, 4 grams of dietary fiber, 6 grams of sugars and over 400 percent of a single daily serving of Vitamin A.

None of these nutritional benefits are present in this whimsical Carrot Cake inspired by a recipe in the April issue of Food Network Magazine. It contains absolutely no carrot, and while the original recipe recommends purchased frozen pound cake and tub frosting, I decided to make a vanilla pound cake recipe and a batch of cream cheese frosting from scratch as the base ingredients for the recipe. Once that’s done, the rest is basically a kitchen craft project of trimming and frosting the cake and precise alignment of dozens of orange jelly beans.

I suspect there’s enough sugar here to assure I’ll be hopping down the bunny trail by late afternoon.

©2011 T.W. Barritt All Rights Reserved

15 comments:

Lydia (The Perfect Pantry) said...

Super cute! I'm not a fan of carrot cake, but a cake shaped like a carrot is a whole other thing to love.

Julia said...

What a fun craft project! Though, I see no reason not to make a carrot cake to go under all that frosting.

Peggy said...

what fun carrot facts! This cake looks too cute, as well!

tasteofbeirut said...

I tried to picture you hopping down the trail and it made me grin broadly; pleasant thoughts are always needed, especially today; eating this cake and gobbling up jelly beans sounds lovely, happy Easter!!!!

Sam Hoffer / My Carolina Kitchen said...

What a cute cake. If it had been yellow, it reminded me of an odd shaped corn on the cob. Jelly beans mean Easter to us. Have a great weekend T.W.
Sam

veron said...

fantastic...you did a great job carving that cake. Happy Easter, T.W. !

Barbara said...

That is so cute, TW!! Happy Easter!
(I loved all your carrot trivia!)

~~louise~~ said...

To say I am delighted I stopped in this evening is an under statement, T.W. I can just imagine you aligning all those jelly beans with a tall glass of Riesling by your side:) Such talent!

Thanks for sharing...A very Happy Easter to you and yours T.W. Louise:)

alfred p. said...

Another carrot fact that I bet you didn't know: Marie Antoinette was a huge fan of carrots; she used to stash them in her towering wigs to snack on at the Petite Trianon. Contrary to popular belief, carrots actually caused her to lose her head: One night during dinner at Versailles, the subject of starving peasants came up. Marie said (in French, of course), "Let them eat carrots; they're tasty, cheap, and you can grow them anywhere". Then she turned to a server and said, "Cake, please." By the time the story of this exchange reached Paris, certain details were lost in the retelling...well, we know what happened next.

T.W. Barritt at Culinary Types said...

Alfred - you are a fount of incredible information. You must have gone to a very good school. Do you remember the episode of Bugs Bunny when Bugs dressed up like Marie Antoinette to trick Elmer Fudd?

alfred p said...

I was a history major (among other things) at NHU. It was exactly that episode that peeked my curiosity and led me to the research that uncovered Marie A's prediliction for carrots---those Warner Brothers guys really knew their stuff!

Mary Bergfeld said...

What a clever idea for the Easter dessert table. The children (of all ages) will love it. I hope you had a wonderful weekend. Blessings...Mary

Jann said...

I did not know the carrot was so famous~loved the cake....

Deana Sidney said...

I used to love bunny cakes as a kid... no meat involved... just cake and coconut... loved it. I just read that Heston Blumenthal does a meat pate that looks exactly like an orange. I guess we all love visual jokes...especially on holidays. Great cake and lovely job. Hope you had a great easter!

Velva said...

That is one cute carrot cake-nice.

Enjoyed the carrot facts too.

Have a great weekend.

Velva