Carrot Cake Surprise

Who would have thought that a crunchy vegetable would make a delicious moist cake? Apparently using carrots in desserts can be traced back to Medieval times. Todays carrot cake evolved from a Medieval dessert called Carrot Pudding. Most of the recipes for carrot pudding seemed to resemble a crumbled up carrot cake served in a ramekin with a vanilla sauce to accompany it. It reminded me almost of a cross between a bread pudding and a soufflé. While the pudding recipes seemed interesting I prefer the modern day version of the Carrot Cake.
Carrot cake is a very moist cake due to in part of the moisture from the carrots. Several recipes use more than one spice such as cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and ginger. I’ve also seen recipes call for addition of orange zest and even coconut. I prefer my carrot cake bare so to speak, with the carrots and cinnamon producing most of the flavor. Several recipes that I have looked at over the years don’t call for it, but I do add a good quality vanilla extract to the batter. This enhances the woody scent of the cinnamon. This cake is one of the easiest cakes to make since you basically dump the ingredients into a bowl and mix it. The hardest part of the recipe is grating the carrots. For the cake to be moist and flavorful I recommend grating the carrots right before you are to make the batter. I found out that if you grate the carrots a day ahead or buy them already grated they tend to lose some of its moisture. This will result in a dry cake. I like to torment myself and use an old fashion box cheese grater. However if you like you can use a food processor to grate your carrots.
There are 2 common toppings for a carrot cake. The first one is a cream cheese frosting and the second is a simple sugar glaze. Depending on how I make my cake will determine what kind of topping I will use. If I am going to make a layer cake, I typically make enough cream cheese frosting to add as a filling between the layers. If I am making a Bundt style cake I typically finish it off with a sugar glaze. I like either topping and don’t really have a favorite. However my mom likes both the cream cheese version and the bundt style sugar glaze version. The last time I made a carrot cake I started thinking well how can I combine the 2 toppings. I pulled out my cake recipe, frosting recipe and glaze recipe. Then I thought what if I bake the cream cheese into the cake and finish it off with a sugar glaze. I think I’ll call it Carrot Cake Surprise, I’m a genius right, lol. Well it seems as though plenty of people thought of that idea already, as I found lots of pictures and recipes combining the 2. Baking the frosting into the cake wouldn’t work because of its ingredients. So I pulled out my cream cheese filling recipe and that’s what I used to make the cake. Well everyone loved it, especially my mom. The recipe that I am going to share with you is measured out for a 12 cup Bundt pan. Since I didn’t have a 12 cup bundt pan I used the biggest bundt I had in the house when I made the cake for the first time. This just happened to be my 10 cup square Bundt. Well I should have adjusted the recipe but I didn’t. The batter oozed out a bit into the whole in the pan. I still use my favorite 10 cup square bundt pan however now I place the pan onto a baking sheet to bake. This will catch any batter that has oozed over. Thankfully that hasn’t happened again but I’m not taking any chances! So grab your favorite bundt pan and lets get started baking this cake together.

CARROT CAKE SURPRISE

Cake Ingredients
2 cups Carrots grated
2 cups Flour
2 cups Sugar
2 teaspoons Baking Powder
2 teaspoons Baking Soda
2 Teaspoons Cinnamon
1 Tablespoon Vanilla Extract
4 Eggs
1 cup Vegetable Oil

Cream Cheese Filling
1 package (8 oz) Cream Cheese softened
1/3 cup Sugar
2 teaspoons Vanilla Extract
1 Egg

Sugar Glaze
1 cup Confectioners Sugar
1-3 tablespoons Milk
2 teaspoons Vanilla Extract

1. Beat the cream cheese, sugar, vanilla and egg until smooth and creamy. Set aside.
2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour bundt pan and set aside.
3. In a large bowl combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and cinnamon.
4. Add eggs, oil and vanilla extract. Beat on medium with a hand mixer until combined. Mixture will be thick.
5. Add the grated Carrots and mix thoroughly.
6. Spoon 3/4 of the batter into the prepared bundt pan. Spoon the cream cheese filling onto the the carrot cake batter. Top off the filling with the remaining cake batter.
7. Bake for 60-65 minutes. The cake will pull away from the pan and a skewer inserted into the cake will come out clean.
8. Remove from oven and cool 10-15 minutes. Invert onto wire rack and remove from pan. Cool completely before adding the glaze.
9. To make the glaze put powdered sugar into a mixing bowl with the vanilla extract and 1 tablespoon of milk. Mix until thickened. Add more milk to achieve desired thickness.
10. Drizzle glaze onto cooled cake and let dry.