Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Chocolate Carrot Cake - Moist & Very Chocolatey


Carrots. Ugh.
Until recently, I felt like I've had more than enough carrot in my life.

I was born shortsighted (my eyes, not my mentality hehe). My mom and I didn't know this until after I started primary school, she saw me squinting at everything. We went to a ophthalmologist. The doctor said I could avoid a pair of glasses (waaaat?? and squint forever?), he prescribed some pills and advised my mom to ensure that I have regular intake of vitamin A, for example...haha, from carrots.

My mom, a perfectionist that she is, wouldn't do anything by half measures. She really ensured that I was given a full large glass of freshly squeezed carrot juice daily. In Starbucks lingo, it would've been at least a grande, and for an 8 year old, that's A LOT! If there was a limit of carrot intake for kids, I exceeded that by a zillion buckets.


Did I enjoy my daily carrot juice?
Ugh.
You know freshly squeezed carrot juice has certain scent and flavor, which normally prompted kids to auto-hate it in an equal amount to how we hated our homeworks?
I hated, hated, hated the juice. It was not even disguised with citrus or anything (carrots also kinda lost its weirdness once cooked)...it was 100% pure carrot juice. I dreaded the time I had to drink my juice (around 3 pm every day), contemplated throwing the juice out and 1001 other tricks, but fearing blindness (I was such a goodie two shoes, and a giant fool), I forced it down my throat every single time. Did it work? Maybe...my shortsightedness was stable until I was about 13 and started wearing glasses. My glasses got thicker and thicker every year until I had to wear contact lenses.

Needless to say, I developed a deep and intense hatred towards carrots, which lasted until my first bite of carrot cake in Australia.

The idea of a carrot cake sent shivers down my spine.
Weird, stinky, yucky, orange-brown colored cake. Ew. It must have involved some kind of dare to get me to take my first bite. After that first bite, all my carrot hatred was resolved. Granted that I won't go back to gulping glasses or carrot juice...but I use a lot of carrots these days, and I even tried baking my own carrot cake, and it was yummy enough for me to do another one with....chocolate.

Look at this...

Don't we kinda wanna dip ourselves into this tub of chocolatey goodness?

...and once it's baked..

...soft, moist, very chocolatey, without any trace of carrotness in it.

Chocolate Carrot Cake

Recipe
(adapted from here , halved, omitted topping, reduced sugar, added cocoa powder and semisweet chocolate chips)
- 2 eggs
- 1/2 cup and 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 & 1/2 cups grated carrots
- a couple handfuls of semisweet chocolate chips
- chocolate jimmies (optional, as I didn't make any toppings ^_^)

Preheat oven to 180C/350F, lightly grease a cake pan (I used a loaf pan). Place eggs, sugar and vanilla in a mixing bowl. Mix flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and cocoa powder in another bowl. Beat eggs, sugar and vanilla mixture until pale, add flour mix and beat until well mixed (I used an electric mixer), add grated carrots, mix well. Pour half of the batter into your cake pan, scatter the chocolate chips and top with the rest of the batter. Scatter some chocolate jimmies on top (optional), bake for about 30-40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Let cool in the oven for 10 minutes, and turn onto a wire rack to cool completely (I let it cool in the pan :p).

I will be baking this moist chocolatey goodness quite often ;)

How's my shortsightedness now? I had it lasered a couple of years ago (I hated contact lenses as much as carrot juice ^_^).

34 comments:

Indonesia Eats said...

aku areppp sing moist dan chocolaty tapi cake lhooo yooo

daphne said...

most of all. . it makes us feel like we are eating something healthy!

Ju (The Little Teochew) said...

Woo hoo! I like carrots but I will eat carrots *by the dozen* if they were all baked in chocolate! What an ingenious idea :) And I hated contact lenses as much as you did *hi-5* ... LASIK was one of the best decisions I've ever made!

Jennifer said...

I for one love carrots!!! Anything carrot really! Your Mom was good to push them! And what better way to get a dose then this cake?! It looks wonderful and SO moist!

test it comm said...

I really like the sound of a chocolate carrot cake!

rokh said...

healthy and chocolatey! must make and i do like carrot ha-ha

Little Corner of Mine said...

Wow, it looks super yummy and moist. Love the carrot and chocolate combination. Really make it sounds healthy.

KennyT said...

I've never been a big fan of carrot cake, but this one with chocolate looks so yummy!

eliza said...

aku pernah bikin kayak ini Rit, pake buttercream frosting coklat jg hehehe..aku tau kamu males bikin frosting ya :D

Anonymous said...

Gosh! you had to drink gallons of carrot juice to keep you from wearing telescopes instead of glasses? Tough. I think, i think.. I rather be blind! :) No not really. I could not see this beautiful chocolate carrot cake you made if i was. I thought you baked only desserts that involved bananas? What happened!? :)

Unknown said...

little teochew, yeah! let's bake more chocolate cake to celebrate lasik hehehe

hi jen, yeah! i was pleasantly surprised :)

hi kev,..and i am still trying to bake a savoury cake...not yet successful so far T_T

rokh and locm, made us feel a little less guilty eh?

kenny, i'll bake you some next time la~ hehe

liz, bikinin dong frostingnya...hmmm buttercream aku masih gak terlalu males (tapi males nunggu butter jadi lembek), kalo ganache lebih males karena musti nyalain kompor heheh

zenman, there's a sign with my picture being crossed out at my fruit vendor's shop...it also says "rita no buy bananas".

Karine said...

When I was a kid, the doctor wanted me to drink carrot juice to help my skin. The first time I tried to drink it, I almost threw up! So you can guess I never want to drink carrot juice.

But I still love raw carrot and cooking with carrots and this cake looks delicious!

Sharon said...

Ingenious! I had no idea you could make chocolate carrot cake! Looks amazing.

Anonymous said...

Ooh mmyyy look at that gooey chocolatey carroty goodness! Glad you got over you hate of carrots cos I like them hee hee (I am a Rabbit)

A & W said...

Whoa! I've never seen sprinkles baked straight on a cake before, they look scrumptious and beautifullllll
-Whitney

pam said...

I've never heard of a chocolate carrot cake! Sounds good! And I love your cute polka dotted plate.

Anonymous said...

I love cake cake but I have never had a chocolate carrot cake. Going to try on this recipe soon!!! Thanks for sharing. Look so moist and yummy!

Mama Mia said...

i hate carrot juice but i like carrot cake! this looks great!

Talita said...

Yummy, yummy!! Looks really good! So moist and soft!

pigpigscorner said...

loving this combo! Looks and sounds amazing.

tigerfish said...

Too late for me to take carrot juice now....severely myopic...:(

Unknown said...

Karine, it wasn't fun indeed. thank god carrots taste great when they're cooked

Sharon, it's a newfound love! carrot + cocoa

FFichiban, now i've become a rabbit ^_^ but no juice :p

Whitney, i used to sprinkle those on every sweets! ^_^

Pam, i have a polka dot fetish...

Ellie, let me know how it turns out :)

Lina, Talita, & pigpigscorner thanks, glad you like it

tigerfish, LASIK, LASIK, LASIK...:)

Starningblue said...

Choc & carrots another great combination. Very tempting recipe! Will give it a shot soon, thanks for this!

Cheers,
Starningblue

Camemberu said...

Wow this looks amazingly good!!!

Bridget The Internet Chef said...

Hi Honey!

What a beautiful recipe, thank you for sharing!

I love it so much I've included it the "Top 21 Chocolate Cake recipe posts on twitter"

Keep up the good work!

Love,
Bridge

Olivia said...

hmm this chocolate carrot really looks great... cheers

Unknown said...

i LOVE THIS BLOG!!
Nice work

Jennifer Vance said...

Haha,my mom would make apple and carrot juice for me when I was a kid,and I usually liked it!Still do.In fact,I'm ok with just carrot juice,as well,but then I like a lot of stuff other people don't normally like. :)

Anonymous said...

How come your method of preparation excludes the oil and the cinnamon that's there in your list of ingredients?
The cinnamon I added to the dry ingredients. Wasn't sure when to add oil though!
Cake baking in the oven. Hope my kids like it

Unknown said...

Hi anonymous, my apologies. Yes the oil can be added in the beginning with the eggs, and the cinnamon can be added with the dry ingredients. Hope you'll enjoy the cake! :)

Anonymous said...

Yummy! Thankyou. And not too sweet. I used brown sugar :-)

Anonymous said...

Hi Rita,

Thanks for this recipe! This is the only chocolate carrot loaf recipe I could find and I am so glad that I tried it out!

I subbed unsweetened applesauce for the oil and used carrot, apple, and ginger pulp from my juicer (I added a little bit of water and made a puree).

I put the batter in muffin tins and just pulled them out of the oven. TASTY.

Thanks again,
Rachel

Anonymous said...

Hi Rita,

Thanks for this recipe! This is the only chocolate carrot loaf recipe I could find and I am so glad that I tried it out!

I subbed unsweetened applesauce for the oil and used carrot, apple, and ginger pulp from my juicer (I added a little bit of water and made a puree).

I put the batter in muffin tins and just pulled them out of the oven. TASTY.

Thanks again,
Rachel

Unknown said...

Rita, thank you so much for sharing this recipe. It was a hit at work. Everyone loved it. People were amazed that I used carrots. Keep up the good work.