Friday, August 22, 2008

Ron's Carrot Cake



Those of you who are regular readers of my blog, know that I spend much of my summer in the Catskill mountains with my girls. One outing we take every year is to a wonderful little jewel of a store call the Ferndale Antiques Marketplace. In fact, last year, my mother purchased my "Egg-cellent" Egg Cutter from this very store. This last trip I salivated over some wonderful Jade Fire king wear, but ended up with some original Grossinger placemats. Grossinger Hotel, for those of you who have no idea what I am talking about, is the actual hotel where Dirty Dancing took place. I have visions of using them at an upcoming Gourmet club. I see samba lessons for the three couples that compose our club!
I digress...back to my story. This year on our visit to Ferndale Antiques Marketplace I met one of the owners..Richard Delia.
He was downright pleasant and we bonded over our mutual love of Apples (computers that is). In the process of telling him why I was buying the Grossinger placemats and my gourment club, my blog came up. - he told me that his partner had the best Carrot Cake Recipe EVER! He was nice enough to e-mail me the recipe. This began my adventure into Carrot Cake world. Ron won 3 years in a row at the Allentown Fair with this recipe.



Look at all these sweet carrots - willingly giving their lives for the sake of my sweet tooth!



One thing Ron does specify in his recipe is that the carrots MUST be hand grated! Processors don't give the right consistency.

Carrot Cake
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons cinnamon
2 cups granulated sugar
1 1/2 cups oil
3 cups carrots, grated by hand ONLY
4 eggs
1 dash salt

Beat sugar and oil. Add carrots. Add eggs, one at a time. Sift together flour, baking powder and soda, cinnamon, and salt. Add all together. Bake in greased pans at 350 degrees for 30 to 35 minutes. Frost cake with cream cheese frosting.



My daughter Logan (first born perfectionist) wanted to frost the cake. I completely appreciate this personality trait in her since I do not have it myself. You give her a job to do - she gets it done faster, better and alphabetized to boot! O.C.D. in small amounts is a gift - I swear!

Cream Cheese Frosting
1 8(oz) cream cheese
1 box confectioners sugar (3 1/2 cups)
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup butter

Cream together butter and cream cheese. Beat in sugar and vanilla. Frost cake when cooled. Decorate with shelled walnuts.




Totally bummed I did not have the walnuts - but we went "Pantry Diving" and came out with a handful of sprees and 2 green gummy bears - Doesn't make a bad looking carrot if I say so myself!



The cake was amazing! It is indeed a Prize winning cake!
I want to give a big thank you to Ron Greco for sharing such a special recipe with the Kitchen Klique.




P.S. Wanted to show you the picture of how I stored the cake in the frig. I LOVE Press and Seal. I wrapped that puppy around the cake plate and rolled down the top - and it didn't touch the icing and left it moist till the last crumb was eaten!

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Not only does that carrot cake look superb but when I clicked on the Antique Market Place I was most impressed. Thanks for sharing the recipe and the "walk through".

Robin said...

Yippee a Carrot Cake without raisens and nuts! This looks delicious. Love the little carrot on top, very clever! I have enjoyed all your uses of press and seal, you could be their rep! Oh and I want to go to that antiques shop, very fun!

Rindy R said...

Anonymous - Ferndale Antique Marketplace IS such a neat place FULL of treasures!!!

Robin Sue - since I don't have a nut allergy- I didn't even think of that, but I'm happy to know your family could enjoy this recipe as well. Your right - I do LOVE my press and seal - it's been a life saver!

Thank you both for stopping by!

Sabrina said...

The candy carrot on top is the best! That is so cute. I will definitely be trying that sometime soon. Thanks for sharing.

Brilynn said...

I love carrot cake! But I think I like it most as an excuse to eat cream cheese frosting!

Rindy R said...

Brilynn - I am in total agreement with you! Thanks for stopping by!

Anonymous said...

That's just too cute with the sprees! I concur with Brilynn about the cream cheese frosting - we need to be putting that on more desserts. Thanks also for the tip about the press & seal - I have a roll in my pantry and often forget to use it.

Anonymous said...

OH yeah, carrot cake is one of my all time favorite cakes EVER!!!
This looks amazing, I would love to try a layered carrot cake!!

Allison Jones said...

Fantastic - I've been looking for a carrot cake recipe to make for a friend's birthday this weekend, and this one looks perfect.

Oakley from Lemonbasil

Anonymous said...

Your carrot garnish is brilliant! Too cute!

Anonymous said...

Made the carrot cake this past labor day weekend. It was a hit! Everyone loved it...

J+S said...

Truly adorable carrot! Do you mind if I post this on my blog and reference back to you? The post will go up tomorrow. Let me know if it's a problem.

Great job!