How to Make a Moist Carrot Cake ✨ Old Fashioned Recipe - Southern Cooking

Duration: 17:32 2199 transcript words EN summary

Video summary

This video presents an old-fashioned recipe for a moist carrot cake that emphasizes specific techniques to achieve the perfect texture and flavor. The host begins by explaining her preference for using a hand grater on large carrots rather than a food processor, noting that the latter creates too much trouble. A key distinction between this carrot cake and standard cakes is the use of oil instead of butter or shortening, which contributes significantly to the moistness of the final product. The preparation involves tossing raisins in flour before adding them to prevent sinking, mixing sugar and eggs directly with the oil, and incorporating spices like cinnamon and ginger to create a lighter flavor profile compared to recipes that rely heavily on strong spices. Once the wet ingredients are combined, the host gradually adds self-rising flour, followed by the grated carrots, crushed pineapple, chopped pecans, and raisins. She notes that because liquid oil is used instead of room-temperature fats, the batter will appear wetter than usual, which is perfectly normal for this type of cake. The mixture is baked in deep pans at 325 degrees Fahrenheit until the sides pull away from the edges and a toothpick comes out clean, a process that typically takes about an hour. The host advises patience during baking, especially for sheet cakes, as carrot cakes do not rise as high as regular cakes and require careful monitoring to avoid overbaking. After baking, the cake is allowed to cool completely before being sliced into layers for frosting. The video then transitions to making a fluffy cream cheese icing using butter, cream cheese, vanilla, evaporated milk, and powdered sugar. The host demonstrates how to assemble the cake by placing a thin layer of icing between the two halves to keep the rich filling balanced, followed by a generous coating on the outside. She offers decorating tips, such as starting with a thick base of icing and using a spatula at an angle to smooth the sides, while also suggesting the use of orange and green food coloring to create festive carrot shapes for an Easter presentation. The final result is described as a delicious, moist cake loaded with fruit and nuts that tastes like a homemade treat cooked in the style of one's mother. The host concludes by slicing into the finished product to show how well it holds together and expressing her satisfaction with the outcome, declaring it her favorite carrot cake recipe. She encourages viewers to try the method despite minor imperfections like raisins sinking slightly, assuring them that the taste will be wonderful. The video ends with a warm invitation for everyone to enjoy their time cooking and a reminder that the channel is dedicated to sharing recipes passed down through generations.

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All right, y'all. I've done this many ways over the years and a lot of y'all probably think, "Why is she using that hand grater?" Because this is the way I prefer it. Uh the food processor to me is just a lot of trouble and I just like to buy the real big carrots and use a um potato peeler and get the outside skin off and then I grate them and it doesn't take long at all. All right, we're going to take a little bit of our flour and toss our raisins in it. It's supposed to help them stay up in the cake a little better and keep them from sinking. And sometimes I think it's works and sometimes it probably don't. I don't know. All right. There's our raisins. Okay, the biggest difference in a carrot cake and most cakes, well, for one, it's got a lot of carrots in it. For another, you use oil instead of butter or shortening. And um so, you typically take your shortening and mix it up with your sugar first or your butter. And because we're using oil, we're going to just mix up our sugar and eggs. 2 and 1/2 cups of sugar. There's one. Two. And 1/2. Now, I'm going to go ahead and tell you guys that have these scoopers. If you have bought the scoops like I've got, you need to use the same product to measure your flour and your sugar with. Don't change them out and use a different brand or a different measuring cup. Um and that way, they'll be what they're supposed to be. So, we're going to turn this on and add four eggs. Our vanilla. Next, we're going to put in a cup of cooking oil, and I'm using corn oil. And then, we're going to put in our spices. And when you make a cake, and you use shortening or butter, you're using the same amount of grease or oil or whatever you want to call it. This is 1 and 1/2 tsp of cinnamon. That was 1 and 1/2 tsp of cinnamon, and I like ground ginger in my carrot cake, so I put in a 1/2 tsp of ground ginger. Okay, we're putting in our fruit last. So, we're going to go ahead and incorporate the flour in here, and then once the flour's in here, we'll start adding our carrots, our pecans, and our raisins. So, right now, we're going to add 2 and 1/4 cups of self-rising flour. And I'm going to start with 2 cups, one on each side. And I'm going to put my little shield on here, cuz it's going to be cloudy. All right, that's mixed about a minute. And now, we're going to add our carrots. Our oven is preheated to 350° You got three cups of shredded carrots. We're using an 8-oz container of crushed pineapple. Use it all. And a cup of chopped pecans. And I think I might have a little to grow on on there in there. And that's it. That's all there is to it except our raisins. Now I mixed up half golden and half regular raisins and let me see um We're really only you're supposed to use a half a cup. And if you want to use more you can. I think I'm going to cuz I mixed them up. All right, we're going to fold this together. And get it in the pans to bake. A cake's batter normally doesn't look this wet but it's because the butter and the shortening are room temperature and now we're using a liquid form so it's going to make your batter look a little bit more wet and that's fine. And we're going to get this batter in these two round cake pans. Now these are deep cake pans. And if you don't have deep ones you're going to need three pans, okay? Now these are 8-in. So you probably could use a 9-in and it be fine. And remember a carrot cake is not going to rise quite as high. Like a regular cake almost rises double. A carrot cake is going to rise about a third or even maybe even a quarter. So these are going to bake at 325° until they're set and the sides start coming out from the edges a little bit and a toothpick comes out clean. It's going to take them about an hour. So, make sure that you get them done, okay? And especially if you're making a sheet cake, it's going to take it longer. So, just be patient and don't take it out too soon. All right? All right, our cake's done. It took it an hour and 10 minutes. And it smelled up the house and smells so good. It looks very delicious. This one is pulling away from the sides. That other one, not so much yet. Yeah, it's pulling away some. So, they're done and ready. Now, I'm going to let they sit out at room temperature for about 10 minutes and then we'll flip them out on some parchment paper. Oh, I can't wait to eat it. one Well, let me tell y'all, I am going to let these cool all the way down, wrap them, put them in my freezer tonight so that I can split the layers when I ice the cake. So, we're going to start with a stick of butter. And I'm using my whisk uh attachment instead of the paddle since I'm making icing and that whip a little air into the icing and make it a little fluffier than if I used a paddle. So, now we're going to put in 8 oz of room temperature cream cheese. And we're going to whip this until it's light in color and fluffy. Okay, you can see how light in color this is once it gets mixed in there good with that butter. We're going to add a little bit of uh vanilla flavoring, about a teaspoon. And we're also going to add a little evaporated milk. Evaporated milk is equivalent to cream. So, if you don't have any evaporated milk, you can always use cream. So, I'm going to use a tablespoon. And then we're going to add 4 and 1/2 cups of powdered sugar to this. I'm going to put my shield on. We're going to add it 1/2 cup at a time, so it's going to take a few minutes. Creamy. Fluff it up. And that should make a nice, fluffy, spreadable cream cheese icing. And if you want to, you can toast the pecans, chop them, and then put them in here as well. But we have some fresh pecans, and they have a really good flavor, so we're not toasting ours today. But now, a lot of the pecans you buy in the store that are dark in color or kind of oily tasting, and they actually taste better if you toast them. All right, we're going to slice these in half. So, I'm just going to use my bread knife and follow along, turning it, watching where I'm cutting, right in half of the cake. The best way to do it is just to watch it as you slice it, instead of trying to slice it all the way um, through with your first try. All right. So, there we have that one. It's a pretty layer. So, I'm going to slice this other one and we're going to get to uh decorating this up. Okay, so I'm going to put a little bit of icing on my tray. I was going to show you guys these boards I got. I got a lot of them and I think it was $14 on Amazon and the link is on the website, but you get a board that's good for a 6-in cake to decorate it. And um, this will be a 8-in or a 9-in and then this would be good for 10-in. So, of course you could the bigger they are, it doesn't matter. You could do a smaller cake on them. So, we're going to get our first layer on here. I'm not going to put a whole lot of icing in between the layers because um, it's going to be rich. Okay, here's our second layer. Which is just half of the first layer and you can tell that my raisins did mostly sink to the bottom even if we put the flour on them. And y'all might have some tips you want to share that works better than what I did. But, you know what? It's all going to be good. This one. I'm try to center it. And um, I've told y'all before some of you, if you haven't seen my videos, my mother was a cake decorator. So, I usually give a few little tips. And, today I'm just going to tell you that you always put your icing on first. So, you're going to start with a good bit of icing. You're not never going to just take a little bit of icing out and ice the cake like that. Um you're always going to start with a lot of icing. You're going to put your pointer finger on top of whatever spatula you're using so that it can help guide and press into the icing like a point. Is that all there? It's going to be a pretty tall cake. Pretty tall. All right. And now you get to use all your icing that's left. Now, I didn't make a huge batch of icing, just enough to ice this cake is all it is. And that's why I used it sparingly in between the layers cuz you want enough on the outside that it's going to be pretty. So, I'm going to go ahead and scrape it all out of here and put it on the top and we'll know what we got to work with. We got to make that work, y'all. I think we can do it. So, you're just going to take your finger like I told you and you always want to kind of angle your spatula and never have it straight like this unless you're just trying to smooth the cake. And we're just going to go around it and try to push some down the side. Now, we're just going to make the top a little pretty. We're going to put a few pecans on the top for the top. And then on the side, uh because I don't have a lot of icing, it's going to be kind of hard to swirl it. And when I can, I'll try. Let me hide that anywhere I've got a thing showing. I'll try to hide it. Just patch it up a little. All right, we're just going to put a couple of carrots on here to make it fun since it's about time for Easter. I'm just using a rotten tip. Not even a tip really, I just cut the end of my bag off. Make these bigger. Okay, and we've got a little stem. Carrots really don't have leaves. Well, they have them, but it's more like a real sporadic parsley type leaf, so we're just going to put a little stem on the top of them. Now, I've got icing already made, so it's easy for me to make a mix up a little bit of orange and green. Um you can get it at the store already made. Buttercream that I got from Sam's Club. Okay? If you put a few on the side, um you can cover up your mess-ups if you have any. But, I'm not going to put them on the side cuz I think it's pretty. There you have it. Carrot cake, homemade from scratch with our White Lily flour and and cheese icing. And I do put ginger in mine. A lot of people do not. They use a stronger spice with the cinnamon, but I like a lighter flavor for my carrot cake, and I think you guys are going to really enjoy it. Now, we're going to slice into it and I'll show you how pretty it looks on a plate. Right there, the carrots. And it's got fruit in it, so I'm using a bread knife. It's a raisin. But it's usually hard to get the first piece out of it, but we'll see how we do. And there it is. Looks delicious to me. Now, that is a moist carrot cake. Mhm. >> [clears throat] >> It's absolutely positively my favorite carrot cake. >> [snorts] >> And that's what my recipe says, my favorite carrot cake. Y'all have a wonderful and blessed day. And we thank you so much for watching Collard Valley Cooks, where we cook like our mamas did. >> Grate [music] the carrots, mix the batter light. Baking up a piece of pure delight with cream cheese icing, smooth and sweet. Serving carrot cakes [singing] so world-class treats. We're cooking like our mamas did today. The Colored Valley Way.