Carrot Cake Disaster

[Suelle Profile Website]

Suelle, I was even more out before.
I've got Joseph Joseph "cups", and thought at first a cup (of flour) was 250g.

No - it's 250ml in volume.

If you fill a cup with flour, without packing it down, then tip it onto scales, you'll find there's somewhere between 120g and 150g in there.

If you do the same thing with muscovado sugar you'll have about 300g in a cup.

[Gillthepainter Profile Website]

Thanks, Sue. I have an American cookbook, vegan, that I really like dipping into.
But those conversions out of cups take a lot of thought & note making.

[KeenCook2 Profile]

I have always had problems with the concept of seeing how much butter you can get into a cup

Unfortunately I am incapable of using US recipes without painstakingly converting everything to oz or gr

[Suelle Profile Website]

I have always had problems with the concept of seeing how much butter you can get into a cup

Unfortunately I am incapable of using US recipes without painstakingly converting everything to oz or gr

Or the variations on a cup of chopped carrots, which will depend on how big the pieces are!

[Pampy Profile]

And don't forget the US cups are a different volume to Imperial cups, which in turn are different to Australian/South African/New Zealand/Canadian one (I think!).

[ZeroCook Profile]

This is the recipe I use, as recommended by Suelle

https://www.bbcgoodfoodme.com/recipes/y ... rrot-cake/

It seems to be foolproof

Ditto. I've tweaked it in various ways and it always works. For example I often make one and a half times the given quantities for a big cake tin I like. I substitute wholewheat flour for half the flour and add extra bsking powder. I sometimes sub a blitzed slightly underripe banana for same quantity of oil.

This and sites like it are quite handy. I was trying to calculate salt for pickles- you simply type in the ingredient
https://www.howmany.wiki/vw/--1--tbsp--of--coarse-salt--in--gram

King Arthur Flour site gives 1 cup flour as 4.5 oz or 130g.

[karadekoolaid Profile]

I've got Joseph Joseph "cups", and thought at first a cup (of flour) was 250g.

If you fill a cup with flour, without packing it down, then tip it onto scales, you'll find there's somewhere between 120g and 150g in there.

I have always had problems with the concept of seeing how much butter you can get into a cup

Which is precisely the reason I cannot get on with "cups". Completely imprecise.
And while I´ve always shied away from baking sweets, which involve precise measures, at least if I had the measures in grams, I´d be able to work something out.

So anyway: my carrot splodge is delicious but I think it might just score 3/10: " could do better"
Next time, I think I´m going to use Sakkarin´s recipe and see how it goes.

[Suelle Profile Website]

And don't forget the US cups are a different volume to Imperial cups, which in turn are different to Australian/South African/New Zealand/Canadian one (I think!).

A very small percentage difference. It wouldn't really affect things noticeably if you used, for example, US cups in an Australian recipe.

You'd be looking at a very old British recipe if it mentioned cups, unless it was something purposely written for someone who didn't have scales, such as students, and was using a standard drinking mug as a measure.

[Binky Profile]

What looked out of kilter to me was the amount of oil - one and a half cups. The recipe I used last week had 125g of oil to 225g of flour.

[Sakkarin Profile]

I´m going to use Sakkarin´s recipe and see how it goes.

Just a note to say again that mine is just a slightly tweaked version of Suelle's "Yummy Scrummy"!

I may have a bash at a "one-egged" version of KK's later as there's none of yesteday's cake left...

[ZeroCook Profile]

Far be it from me to be picky, but the flour isn't enough, is it for an enormous cake?
Should be 420g or so?

I would say so exactly, Gill.

Could it be a typo? Should prob be 4 cups flour. But there seems to be a huge amount of carrots too.

It looks like one of those off the wall/untested recipes that abound online.

If you look at the esteemed and (almost) foolproof yummy scrummy recipe in terms of ratios and hydration (like you do with bread) It comes out as same weight of sugar to flour to oil

With KDKA Disaster recipe it's 1.5c/360ml oil + 80 ml orange juice + 4eggs = 440ml liquid to 2c/420 g sugar to 2c/260g flour which should probably be 4 c / 420 g.

Yummy Scrummy

175g light muscovado sugar
175ml sunflower oil
3 large eggs, lightly beaten
140g grated carrots (about 3 medium)
100g raisins
grated zest of 1 large orange
175g self-raising flour
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp grated nutmeg (freshly grated will give you the best flavour)

Disaster Cake

1 1/2 cups (360 mls) vegetable oil
1 cup (210 gms) brown sugar
1 cup (210 gms) white sugar
4 large eggs
1/3 cup (65 mls) orange juice [ 80ml]
1 tbsp grated orange peel
2 cups (320 gms) flour [260 g]
2 tsps baking soda (bicarbonate of soda?)
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp salt
3 cups (500 gms) finely grated carrots
1 cup (180 gms) raisins

[Gillthepainter Profile Website]

Morning, Zero.
I'm really fancying making a carrot cake now. I'll look for a recipe that supports your ratio.

[karadekoolaid Profile]

Thanks for the maths, ZeroCook. That´s precisely the kind of information I don´t manage, not being a regular cake baker! Far too much liquid compared with the other ingredients.
Another thing that occurred to me; the recipe said "grate the carrots finely", so I did, using a microplane.Maybe too finely, and that´s why the cake was too wet.

[KeenCook2 Profile]

the recipe said "grate the carrots finely", so I did, using a microplane.

Goodness, that must have taken ages!
Are you sure it wasn't the added finger blood that made it too wet
I've always been scared to get a microplane grater as I don't trust myself to keep my fingers intact

[ZeroCook Profile]

KDKA - the internet can be a recipe minefield. Even celeb chef recipes can be way off. I've had a few disasters of my own, I can tell you.

Morning, Zero.
I'm really fancying making a carrot cake now. I'll look for a recipe that supports your ratio.

Morning Gill. Omg - me too thinking about a cake! Was also just looking a the chickpea cake thread ... I daren't tho as Mr Zero is not a cake aficionado and guess who would end up eating it all

BTW you can heavily reduce the sugar of course - which I also do when I tweak the yummy scrummy recipe. See earlier post.

[ZeroCook Profile]

Another thing that occurred to me; the recipe said "grate the carrots finely", so I did, using a microplane.Maybe too finely, and that´s why the cake was too wet.

Yes - absolutely - major amount of liquid given off when grating carrots that fine - great for spicy South African carrot peanut salad/sambal tho.

[Stokey Sue Profile]

Another thing that occurred to me; the recipe said "grate the carrots finely", so I did, using a microplane.Maybe too finely, and that´s why the cake was too wet.

Wetness and texture
I tend to use the 2 mm grater on the food processor, and I think even that’s a bit fine

If using a machine just cut the carrots in fairly short sections, it’s surprisingly hard to stir tangled carrot strands

[ZeroCook Profile]

If using a machine just cut the carrots in fairly short sections, it’s surprisingly hard to stir tangled carrot strands

Trudat.

[Sakkarin Profile]

Karrot KKake...

Took 10 minutes longer *to cook* than the Yummy Scrummy (YS), as it was a very slack batter, however it held together well, and to my mind tasted better than the YS, although t'other had better texture. Although KK's expanded to a bigger cake, when cooled it deflated back down to the same size as the YS. Very moist though, I think people expect a carrot cake to be more cakey, although the YS is very moist too.

Sunflower's Lemon Chicken later. Oranges and lemons! Although I cheated again and used orange extract instead of orange proper.



*EDIT*

[karadekoolaid Profile]

Wow, Sakks - that´s brilliant! fresh orange juice makes a huge difference, mind you - and I only needed two oranges.

Keen2cook: I´ve had ONE accident on a mandoline and since then have avoided slicing/grating fingers thank goodness. I just make sure the microplane is well away from my digits!