Carrot cake

Carrot cake brings back memories from Bangalore. This cake was not my favorite untill I had it from the church that I used to go to, while in Bangalore. It was the Parish priest's birthday and his friend from Kerala had send across carrot cake for all who come to that church. How sweet right? Actually it is not just one time that he did that. Every year for this parish priest's birthday, the carrot cake arrives. Atleast, I was lucky to have it twice :).

Anyways, since then, I had been in search of a carrot cake that would taste atleast somewhat close to what I had at the church if not exactly like it. Finally I came across this recipe and I am happy how it turned out. 

I am a fan of carrots. Whether it is in its raw form or in the form of stir fry or in the form of dessert like carrot halwa or carrot cake. If you too love carrots and have a sweet tooth, I would definitely suggest you to try it. They are just great.

Ingredients

1. 1/2 cup of unsalted butter, melted
2. 1/2 cup of canola oil / vegetable oil
3. 2 large eggs
4. 3/4 cup of buttermilk
5. 1 1/2 cup of granulated sugar
6. 1/4 cup of light brown sugar
7. 1 tsp of vanilla extract
8. 1 tsp of cinnamon powder
9. 1/4 tsp of nutmeg powder
10. 2 cup of all purpose flour
11. 1 1/2 tsp of baking soda
12. 1 tsp of baking powder
13. A pinch of salt
14. 2 1/4 cups of grated carrot
15. 3/4 cup of raisins
16. 3/4 cup of diced nuts (cashew, walnut, pecan )

Method

• Preheat the oven to 350 F.
• Grease the baking pans and keep it aside.
• In a mixing bowl, take the melted butter, oil, eggs, buttermilk, sugars, vanilla, cinnamon powder and nutmeg powder. Whisk it well untill everything gets combined well.
• Add the all purpose flour, salt, baking powder and baking soda. Stir it untill everything gets evenly distributed. Do not over mix it.
• Add the grated carrots, raisins and diced nuts to the batter and mix it untill everything gets evenly distributed.
• Pour the batter on to the greased baking pans and bake it for about 40-50 minutes or untill the cake is golden brown in colour and a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
• Remove it from the oven and let it rest for 10 minutes in the pan before you transfer the cake on to a wire rack.
• If you wish to have the carrot cake with frosting, go for the cream cheese frosting once the cake cools down.

Tips

1. As the cake would rise considerably, keep the batter just half filled in the baking pans to avoid spill over.
2. I forgot to sprinkle all purpose flour over the raisins and nuts before I added into the batter and you can see it all in the picture. All the raisins have settled down at the bottle of the cake. So when you make it, make sure you sprinkle all purpose flour over the raisins and nut to form a coating, before you add it to the cake batter, so that they don't sink to the bottom of the pan.

Recipe courtesy : Adapted from Averie Cooks