Cakes are a default menu item on most holiday and christmas menus. But for me, cakes are on the menu any time of the year. One cake that has been a seasonal one for most of my life is a carrot cake. To make it festive, I add rum to it and bake a wet Rum Soaked Carrot Cake.
Carrots are a gift of winters. There are several ways to enjoy them in sabzi, as salads, dessert or a cake. The season might begin in fall or autumn here in the US, but in India they are fresh and abundant only in the winter months. One particular variety of carrots, a bright red and most commonly called “dilli gajar” beyond northern India, are what we always looked forward to. Both Sakshi and I bemoan the lack of finding those same, juicy, red carrots in Dubai and US. They make for the best, gorgeous Gajrela. For now though, we have to make do with some orange gajrela.
What is that red carrot?
Until now I hadn’t thought about the name of those gorgeous carrots cultivated in India. But seeing the variety of colors available at stores in the US, my curiosity was piqued, obviously there were more than just two colors – orange or red – in the world. A little bit of research led me to a whole gamut of red varieties developed by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research. Along with farmers who’ve selectively bred their own varieties, ICAR is constantly launching new ones. How I wish the Dilli Gajar was flooding markets in the US!
Enough with all this moaning, let’s get on with the cake.
Baking a wet Rum Soaked Carrot Cake:
Total Preparation Time: about 2 to 2.5 hours
Inactive: 1 hour 20 minutes, Active: 40 – 50 minutes
Ingredients for a Rum Soaked Carrot Cake
- 2.5 cups grated carrots (3 carrots),
- 1/2 cup rum,
- ~ 3/4 cup milk (1/2 for soaking, 1/4 for batter),
- 1 tsp cinnamon powder,
- 1/2 to 1 tsp nutmeg powder,
- 1 cup all purpose flour,
- 1 tsp baking powder,
- 1/2 tsp baking soda,
- 1 cup sugar,
- 4 tbsp olive oil or butter,
- 2 eggs,
- 1 tsp vanilla essence.
For the Vanilla Frosting:
- 3 cups confectioners sugar,
- 1 stick of butter (~ 1/2 cup),
- 1 tsp vanilla essence.
Follow along with the video recipe ⬆️
How to bake a Rum Soaked Carrot Cake:
First, soak grated carrots in rum and milk.
Step one of this recipe requires grated carrots to sit in a mix of rum and milk for at least one hour. Just as in the Rum and Date Cake recipe, the longer the soak the better. But an hour is pretty good. I finely grated half the carrots and kept the rest thick and chunky.
An hour later, get baking.
Preheat the oven to 350 F.
Start with measuring flour, baking powder and baking soda in one bowl. Mix them well with either a fork or spoon; or better still sieve the three to mix them evenly.
Next, in another bowl measure sugar then add oil to it. Whisk to cream the sugar. With oil this part of the process tends to create a lumpy mix. Do not worry. This is fine.
Now, break in the first egg and whisk well, followed by the second egg. Add a teaspoon of vanilla essence and mix again.
Now comes the fun part – mixing the dry and wet ingredients. Start and finish with flour. First add some flour, about a tablespoon worth and mix in. Then add a quarter of the carrot mix, followed by flour. Continue so until all ingredients have been combined to form a batter that is about the consistency of pancake batter. If it is thicker, add a tablespoon of milk at a time to thin it.
Bake at 350 F for 40 – 50 minutes
Transfer to a prepared baking tin. I used a square tin and lined it with wax paper. You could also choose to either grease the pan or use parchment paper. Bake at 350 F for 40 minutes. Check with a toothpick or cake tester to check if it’s baked all the way through. If a tester has some batter clinging to it, bake for another 10 minutes. Increase time in increments of 10 minutes to bake the cake. In most cases 40-50 minutes is sufficient time for the batter to cook.
Carrots hold a lot of water which will be released during the baking process. This result in two things – 1) there will be a lot of minute holes on the surface where steam escapes and 2) the center will be more like a pudding; a true wet cake. One advantage of baking at a low temperature is that the cake doesn’t rise too quickly and crack on the top. Perfect for frosting on any side!
Once the cake is done, remove from the oven and allow it to cool completely on a cake rack. Only then can we move on to frosting. Frankly, you could enjoy it as is. I frost very rarely and only in the festive spirit.
Making vanilla frosting
To make vanilla frosting I adapted quantities of ingredients from two sources – Betty Crocker’s Buttercream Frosting and Live Well Bake Often’s Buttercream Frosting. Betty Crocker’s recipe asks to use only 1/3 cup of butter with a tablespoon or so of milk while Danielle at Live Well Bake Often uses 1 cup butter and whipping cream along with a bit of salt.
Here’s what I did:
Using butter softened to room temperature, I first added 1/3 cup to a bowl. Then measured 3 cups of confectioners sugar and added it to the butter. (Coincidentally the quantity of sugar is constant in both recipes referred.)
After beating the sugar in butter, I quickly realized it wasn’t working. So then I added the remaining butter from 1 stick which increased the final amount of butter to about 1/2 cup. Then using Betty Crocker’s recipe recommendation, I added milk. After adding milk the frosting truly became creamy as seen below. Finally, added 1 tsp of vanilla essence and folded it in. The whole process took 10 minutes of whisking, that’s it!
Let the frosting sit at room temperature or keep it on the lowest shelf in a refrigerator, not for too long since butter will harden, before spreading it on a cool cake.
Perfect dessert for potluck dinners!
Frosted, this rum soaked carrot cake makes from a delicious, elegant dessert to take for a host or to serve at your own dinner party.
Store at room temperature for ~ 1 week.
This cake can be kept at room temperature for about a week, the trick is to store it in lightly covered in paper or a container WITHOUT an airtight lid. Since it is a wet cake, keeping it in an airtight container at room temperature might actually accelerate growth of fungi.
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- Ingredients for a Rum Soaked Carrot Cake
- 2 cups grated carrots,
- 1/2 cup rum,
- ~ 3/4 cup milk (1/2 for soaking, 1/4 for batter),
- 1 tsp cinnamon powder,
- 1/2 to 1 tsp nutmeg powder,
- 1 cup all purpose flour,
- 1 tsp baking powder,
- 1/2 tsp baking soda,
- 1 cup sugar,
- 4 tbsp olive oil or butter,
- 2 eggs,
- 1 tsp vanilla essence.
- 3 cups confectioners sugar,
- 1 stick of butter (~ 1/2 cup),
- 1 tsp vanilla essence.
- Soak grated carrots in a mix of rum and milk for at least one hour.
- Preheat the oven to 350 F.
- Start by measuring flour, baking powder and baking soda in one bowl.
- Mix them well with either a fork or spoon; or better still sieve the three to mix them evenly.
- In a separate bowl measure sugar then add oil to it.
- Whisk to cream the sugar.
- Break in the first egg and whisk well, followed by the second egg.
- Add a teaspoon of vanilla essence and mix again.
- Start mixing all ingredients together in the eggs.
- Begin and finish with flour.
- First add some flour then add a quarter of the carrot mix, followed by flour.
- Continue so until all the ingredients have been combined to form a batter that is about the consistency of pancake batter.
- If it is thicker, add a tablespoon of milk at a time to thin it.
- Transfer to a prepared baking tin.
- Bake the at 350 F for 40 minutes.
- Check with a toothpick or cake tester to check if it’s baked all the way through.
- Increase time in increments of 10 to bake the cake.
- In most cases 40-50 minutes is sufficient time to bake the cake.
- Using butter softened to room temperature, add 1 stick of butter to a bowl.
- Then add 3 cups of confectioners sugar.
- Mix well.
- Add 1 to 2 tbsp of milk and whisk until creamy.
- Add 1 tsp vanilla essence and fold it in.
- Store at room temperature or on the lowest shelf in a fridge.
- Let the cake cool completely before spreading the frosting on it, otherwise it will disintegrate.