I Declare It Carrot Cake! by Chris Clark
A tremendous thanks to Chris Clark who generously shared his entire project documenting his quest for the ultimate macrobiotic carrot cake. Chris is a recent graduate of The Natural Epicurean Academy of Culinary Arts located in Austin Texas, and recently completed their intensive Culinary Training Program. Now he is soon off for a macrobiotic cooking position at a yoga retreat center in the island of Crete. It can be only guessed how much tortuous eating of bad tasting carrot cake concoctions and upset stomachs Chris had to endure to perfect his recipe. Please make Chris's carrot cake and let him know how much you enjoyed it, you can email him direct at
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Also give a look at Chris's web site, Miso Hungry
Introduction
With this project, my primary objective was the creation of a health-supportive dessert recipe. My motivation arose while observing and contemplating the common attitudes towards dessert of otherwise health-motivated people like myself. Oftentimes we lower our quality standards while deeming acceptable ingredients we would never add to our meals. For example, I would never sauté my vegetables in canola oil, but occasionally I find myself eating cookies containing this and other questionable ingredients. What incites and propels this disassociation of dessert from diet? Certainly time constraints leave most people disinclined to prepare desserts at home. And since health food stores seldom offer high quality, prepared desserts, health-motivated consumers often resort to products containing sugar (regularly disguised as evaporated cane juice ), refined oils, fortified grains, isolated soy products, and stabilizers such as xanthan gum. After much self-experimentation with these foods, I believe that even in small quantities they perpetuate cravings and imbalance while greatly impeding the healing process. I prefer and encourage home preparation of desserts, especially this carefully balanced recipe for my deliciously satisfying "I Declare It Carrot Cake!"
Carrot Cake and Me
Growing up, my cake preferences tended more towards chocolate or lemon, but usually not carrot cake. Of course, I would never object to a delicious carrot cake, baked by my mother on a brisk, autumn afternoon. In fact, I would likely react by eating enough to make myself ill! Nevertheless, carrot cake was never one of my favorites.
Why then did I choose to convert this recipe using macrobiotic principles? Well in many ways carrot cake symbolizes my understanding of and approach towards health during my younger years. For as long as I can remember, I have always recognized the importance of health, an insight I initially derived from my Mor-Mor ( mother's mother in Danish). From the time I was a toddler until her death during the spring term of my first year of college, she struggled constantly with heart disease. Never one to complain or seek pity though, she was always the happiest, most grateful person I knew, and her approach to life affected me deeply. But despite her gracious perspective, the physical pain she endured invoked great fear within me and while still very young, this fear motivated me to choose a health-conscious lifestyle. Whether she realized it or not, my Mor-Mor profoundly influenced the shaping of my life. Her suffering nudged me down the path towards true health and happiness, and for this I am forever grateful. So what does this have to do with carrot cake?
Well through the years, my understanding of health has undergone constant revision. For example, sometimes it has meant extreme focus on exercise with little regard for diet. Sometimes it has meant choosing chicken over beef, or highly processed whole-wheat bread over white bread. Sometimes it has even meant choosing Wendy's over McDonald's or Burger King. In other words my perception of healthiness, whether clear or blatantly skewed, has always informed my approach towards health. Likewise, misperceptions about carrot cake have perpetually supported its amusing association with health and wholesomeness. The mere addition of fresh carrots to the traditional base of white flour, vegetable oil, white sugar and eggs has enabled this dish to cleverly masquerade with the healthy foods! So as it perfectly symbolizes my often misguided, yet ever enthralling journey towards true health, carrot cake is an ideal recipe for me to convert using macrobiotic principles.
The History of Carrot Cake
Food historians believe that modern carrot cake has descended from medieval carrot-based desserts. In the Oxford Companion to Food , Alan Davidson explains, " In the Middle Ages in Europe, when sweeteners were scarce and expensive, carrots were used in sweet cakes and desserts." Later during the 18th and 19th centuries, recipes for carrot puddings started appearing in British cookbooks. During World War II, carrot desserts again became popular in Britain , a revival sparked by the Ministry of Food's dissemination of recipes including carrot pudding and carrot cake. Although their motivation for encouraging these recipes was the prevalence of carrots amidst other food shortages, to support their recommendations they rallied behind carrot health benefits, perhaps the first time that carrot-based desserts were heralded as healthy. John Ayo, in his book An A-Z of Food and Drink , explains that the British government told citizens that British pilots had improved their night vision by eating large quantities of carrots. Perhaps this was the seed of the myth enamoring carrot cake as a healthy dessert, a myth that caught on both in Europe and in America during the latter stages of the 20th century.
Despite the prevalence of carrot cake in European history, its U.S. history has been much less pronounced. Molly O'Neil, in her New York Cookbook , states that George Washington was served a carrot teacake at Fraunces Tavern in lower Manhattan on November 25, 1783. Known as Evacuation Day, this day saw the final departure of British military troops from the United States after the American Revolution. Despite the supreme irony of serving an American President a popular British dessert on such an occasion, carrot cake didn't catch on in America for at least another 150 years. Jean Anderson, author of The American Century Cookbook: The Most Popular Recipes of the 20th Century , notes that carrot cake recipes are noticeably absent from American cookbooks right through the 19th century and well into the 20th. In 1983, the Pillsbury Company thoroughly researched carrot cake history, even staging a contest to find the first printed recipe in the United States . The winner was a recipe printed in The Twentieth Century Bride's Cookbook published in 1929 by a woman's club in Wichita, Kansas. A close second place went to a recipe printed in 1930 in the Chicago Daily News Cookbook . Despite these findings, both Pillsbury and Jean Anderson concluded that carrot cake didn't become popular in America until the second half of the 20th century. Its rise in popularity seems to parallel an increasing interest in health during this time.
The Healing/Energetic Profile and Cooking Method of the Traditional Recipe
Although the rise in popularity of carrot cake may follow health trends during the latter decades of the 20th century, this does not suggest that carrot cake is necessarily healthy. In fact, the traditional recipe indicates that carrot cake was never much healthier than any other traditional cake. The recipe calls for several dry ingredients that are especially detrimental to the digestive system and to blood sugar regulation. Since white flour has been stripped of its bran, it acts as sugar in the blood, leading to an acidic condition. The refined white sugar has the same effect. Regarding digestion, the flour, baking soda and baking powder are extremely bloating to the intestines, and difficult to assimilate and digest. The salt used in the original recipe is refined table salt, or pure sodium chloride. This poisonous chemical is derived from  sea salt, kiln fired to extract the trace minerals that balance its sodium chloride content. Therefore, the salt from the original recipe also supports an acidic blood condition.
The wet ingredients include vegetable oil and eggs, both rather deleterious to the body. The eggs are high in fat and cholesterol and are extremely yang. Vegetable oil, usually processed from soybeans, is low-quality oil and is also high in fat and cholesterol. Furthermore commercial vegetable oil is rarely organic, and soybeans are among the highest chemically treated plants, thus they contain chemicals and insecticides absorbed during the growing process.
The other ingredients include carrots, walnuts, cinnamon and ginger. The carrots add sweetness and thus also raise blood sugar levels. This vegetable-quality carbohydrate, however, is much lower on the glycemic index than white sugar. The walnuts are yin and provide the dish with more fat. Both the cinnamon and the ginger are somewhat stimulating and warming. The frosting contains butter, cream cheese, powdered sugar and vanilla extract. The butter and cream cheese are mucous forming and very high in fat and cholesterol. The powdered sugar, like white sugar, is acid forming because it raises blood sugar levels. The frosting is very yin and lacks balance.
Overall the original recipe balances the extreme yin of white sugar, white flour, vegetable oil, baking soda and baking powder with the extreme yang of eggs, table salt and the cooking style of baking. However, especially when adding the extremely yin frosting, the original recipe is very yin food and does not support balance. Furthermore, it is extremely acid forming and also hard on digestion. Despite the addition of fresh grated carrots, the recipe is certainly not a healthy dessert alternative. Traditional carrot cake is a prime example of the misperception of what constitutes healthy food.
The Healing/Energetic Profile and The Cooking Method of the New Recipe
The converted recipe uses flaked or rolled grains instead of to flour because these foods are less mucous forming and easier to digest. I recommend using a hand roller to crush fresh, whole grains rather than using rolled grains sold in stores since, having been exposed to light and air for indeterminable periods of time, they have necessarily lost some vitality. If this is not an option, store bought rolled grains are still preferred over flour. Flour is highly pulverized so it oxidizes much faster than rolled grains and thus loses vitality quicker. Also rolled grains are lower on the glycemic index than flour and, in my experience, they providing longer lasting energy.
Most grains, especially non-whole grains such as those used in this recipe, are slightly yin and acid forming. Other yin ingredients are the sweeteners, rice syrup and barley malt, and the coconut oil. Coconut oil has some interesting properties. It is ideal for baking because it is stable at high temperatures and thus not prone to creating trans-fatty acids. I find coconut oil easier to digest than other high-heat tolerant oils such as safflower oil. And unlike coconut oil, readily available both unrefined and organic, I have struggled to find unrefined, organic safflower oil. Since both sweeteners used in the recipe are derived from fermented grains, they contain many minerals missing from white sugar. In his book Healing With Whole Foods , Paul Pitchford states that grain-based sweeteners contain many nutrients found in whole grains and good percentages of complex sugars, which take much longer to digest than the simple variety. Carrots, among the sweetest of all vegetables, also add complex sugars from a whole-food source. If using raisins, the cake will have much more expansive energy due to their fructose content. To balance this energy, I recommend using an extra pinch of sea salt. If using walnuts, I recommend pan toasting them to enhance their flavor and to balance their yin nature.
The cinnamon and ginger both have stimulating, warming and drying properties. They are also known to aid with the digestion of particularly sweet foods and to balance their moistening properties (Pitchford). The yang elements of the recipe, the sea salt and the baking method, also provide balance. The amount of salt is higher than that recommended when cooking whole grains. This additional salt is necessary to help balance the oil and sweeteners. Baking, a very contractive, yang cooking method, also helps balance the yin ingredients.
The frosting is optional because, like the cake, it is balanced in and of itself. Almonds, the base ingredient for the frosting, are slightly warming and sweet and, unlike most nuts, they are alkalizing. Soaking the almonds initiates the germination process, thereby improving digestibility by converting protein and fat into free amino acids and simple carbohydrates. The rice syrup, though slightly acidifying, is balanced by the alkalizing effect of the nuts and the ume vinegar. The frosting combines sweet and sour tastes. The sourness, coming from the ume vinegar and from the fermentation of the nuts, supports the liver and the high-quality sweet flavor supports the spleen.
Overall, the converted recipe provides harmonizing, warming, ascending and dispersing energy. It is an ideal dessert for those transitioning towards a macrobiotic diet or for occasional use by those already enjoying a macrobiotic lifestyle. Furthermore, I think it can satisfy even those disinterested in healthy eating. It is very easy to prepare and an excellent alternative to the low-quality dessert and snack foods commonly sold in health-food stores.
In experimenting with this dish, I found many possible variations and have included one recipe below. This recipe, for Sweet Carrot Bread, is like the cake recipe except without the rice syrup and barley malt. Since these sweeteners are not used, the balancing salt content is also reduced.
Closing Thoughts
My understanding of health has changed drastically since my childhood fear of disease prompted my interest in healthy living. My experience converting this recipe has further clarified this understanding by enabling me to learn firsthand how different ingredients interact to create balance. Before starting this project, I presumed that whole-grains are always healthier than grain products like flour. So with the early versions of this recipe, I rigidly attempted to create a carrot cake using whole grain millet cooked with various grain-based sweeteners. The texture was always too coarse, but more notable, eating it tended to disturb my digestion. Nevertheless, I persisted with the whole-grain based recipe because I assumed this was the best option for a health-supportive dish. After countless variations on the initial version, I started thinking that perhaps whole grains are seldom used in desserts for good reason. Just as fruit is rarely combined with meals, I supposed that perhaps the complex carbohydrates of whole grains do not combine well with the simpler sugars of grain-based sweeteners. I gained this insight through self-experimentation and later confirmed it through Healing With Whole Foods . Here Paul Pitchford explains that when combined with other foods, simple carbohydrates digest first, monopolizing the digestive functions while the other foods tend to sit and ferment. The final version of the recipe uses rolled grains, broken down and thus easier to digest. While it might not provide the long, sustaining energy of whole grains, the recipe is a dessert, and thus not intended to offer such energy.
A final interesting tidbit about this new recipe is that, like the historically early carrot-based desserts, this recipe is perfect when financial resources are low! The cake and frosting ingredients can be bought for less than two dollars! And again, how perfect for macrobiotic cooking since macrobiotic food, besides being the most nourishing, balanced and delicious, is also the most affordable. So please, prepare it and share it while I declare it carrot cake!
I Declare It Carrot Cake! Recipe
- 2 cups rolled or flaked grains (wheat, barley and oats work well)
- 1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon dried ginger
- 3/4 teaspoon sea salt (add extra pinch if electing to use raisins)
- 1 cup water
- 2 tablespoons rice syrup
- 2 tablespoons barley malt
- 1 tablespoon coconut oil
- 2 cups shredded carrots
- 1/4 cup pan toasted chopped walnuts (optional)
- 1/4 cup raisins (optional)
Optional Frosting:
- 1/2 cup almonds, soaked 5-6 hours
- 1/4 cup water
- 1 tablespoon rice syrup
- 1/2 teaspoon ume vinegar
In a small saucepan, combine water, sea salt, cinnamon, ginger, rice syrup, barley malt and coconut oil. Heat over low flame, stirring just until a uniform consistency is achieved. Remove from flame and gradually stir in rolled grains. Stir in shredded carrots (and raisins and/or walnuts if using). Spread mixture in lightly oiled baking dish and bake at 350 for 45 minutes.
For frosting, blanch almonds in boiling water for about 30 seconds or until skins slide off easily. Remove almond skins and finely blend almonds in food processor. Allow processed almonds to sit on countertop for several hours or overnight. Add remaining ingredients and thoroughly blend in food processor for at least 45 seconds. Spread on cake and enjoy.
Note on rolled/flaked grains: I recommend hand rolling your grains with a manual roller/flaker such as those made by Schnitzer which are sold at CyberMacro. If this is not an option, use pre-rolled grains sold in bulk at your grocery store. Barley flakes and oats tend to work best in this case because they are thinner than wheat flakes.
Sweet Carrot Bread Recipe
- 2 cups rolled or flaked grains (wheat, barley and oats work well)
- 1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon dried ginger
- 1/4 teaspoon sea salt (add extra pinch if electing to use raisins)
- 1 1/4 cup water
- 1 tablespoon coconut oil
- 2 cups shredded carrots
- 1/4 cup pan toasted chopped walnuts (optional)
- 1/4 cup raisins (optional)
In small saucepan, combine water, sea salt, cinnamon, ginger, and coconut oil. Heat over low flame, stirring just until a uniform consistency is achieved. Remove from flame and gradually stir in rolled grains. Stir in shredded carrots (and raisins and/or walnuts if using). Spread mixture in lightly oiled baking dish and bake at 350 for 45 minutes.
Traditional Carrot Cake Recipe
- 2 cups white flour
- 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon ground ginger
- 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
- 2 teaspoons baking soda
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 2 cups white sugar
- 1 1/2 cups vegetable oil
- 4 eggs
- 3 cups grated carrots
- 1 cup chopped walnuts (optional)
Frosting:
- 1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese
- 1/2 cup butter, softened
- 1 pound powdered sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Directions:
Combine flour, baking soda, baking powder, spices and salt. In a separate bowl, beat sugar, oil and eggs. Add egg mixture to dry ingredients and mix well. Stir in carrots and walnuts. Pour batter into a greased baking dish and and bake at 350 for 1 hour. To make cream cheese frosting, blend ingredients together and spread over cooled cake.
Chris's recipe makeover project has inspired a new recipe competition at CyberMacro, read more about it here.
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i just made some carrot cake myself! =] (for school) i never had it before so im hopefully goign to like it 
