Carrot and Pecan Cake Recipe

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Pecans and carrots make a wonderful combo for anyone looking for a traditional and homemade taste. Among all the carrot cake recipes we've looked into, this one is perhaps the most easy and delicious to make. When you bake this wonder, make sure to set a good piece aside for you because it won't last!

Ingredients

3 Cups of grated carrots

4 Eggs

1 1/4 Cups of vegetable oil

2 Tsp. of ground cinnamon

2 Tsp. of vanilla extract

2 Cups of all-purpose flour

2 Tsp. of baking soda

2 cups white sugar

2 Tsp. of baking powder

1 Chopped pecans cup

1/2 Tsp. of salt

8 ounces cream cheese, softened

1/2 cup butter, softened

1 cup chopped pecans

4 cups confectioners' sugar

1 Tsp. of vanilla extract

Directions

Grease and flour a 9×13 inch pan and preheat oven to 350 °F.

Using a large bowl, beat together white sugar, oil, eggs and 2 teaspoons vanilla. Mix in baking soda, flour, salt, cinnamon, carrots, pecans and baking powder. Pour mixture into prepared pan. Put into preheated oven for 40 to 50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Take cake out of the oven and let it cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack and let it cool at room temperature for at least 1 hour. While the cake cools down: In a bowl, combine cream cheese, confectioners' sugar, butter and 1 teaspoon vanilla. Beat until the mixture is creamy. Add in chopped pecans. Frost the cooled cake.

Dessert Recipe - Let Them Eat Chocolate Cake

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Baking a really good chocolate cake from scratch is not difficult. Anyone with rudimentary skills in the kitchen can manage it. Cake mixes are good, but with a little extra effort, you can make a cake the old fashioned way and really have a special dessert. About the only difference from using a mix is that you have to spend a couple minutes assembling the ingredients and then you are just blending it in a big bowl with an electric mixer.

In this chocolate cake recipe, you can use either cocoa powder or melt squares of unsweetened chocolate. This versatility adds to the convenience of the dessert recipe because you can use either form of baking chocolate, depending on what happens to be in the cupboard. Although you can also use either all-purpose flour or cake flour, a cake made with cake flour will have a finer and softer texture. Don't worry if you only have all-purpose flour. Your cake will still turn out fine.

When you go shopping for the ingredients, keep in mind that a good chocolate cake, or any chocolate dessert, starts with selecting a good chocolate. Going upscale, especially with something from Europe, is definitely worth the extra couple bucks. Common products from Hershey's or Nestle are just adequate, not great.

Chocolate cake recipe ingredients:

2 cups all-purpose flour or cake flour
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
3/4 cup water
3/4 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
2 eggs
4 ounces unsweetened chocolate melted and cooled OR 2/3 cup cocoa powder
 
Select the type of cake pan that you wish to use for baking. You can choose from two or three round 8 or 9 inch pans, bundt cake pan, or 13 x 9 inch rectangular pan. With shortening or butter grease your pan and then dust with flour. This ensures that the cake will not stick and comes out of the pans easily.
 
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. If using chocolate squares, melt them on very low heat or use a double boiler and then let the chocolate cool. If using the cocoa powder you can mix it in immediately with the other dry ingredients.
 
Assemble the dry ingredients into a bowl and then add the buttermilk, water, vanilla, oil, and eggs (and melted chocolate if that is what you are using). With an electric mixer, beat on high for 3 minutes until the batter has a smooth consistency with no lumps. If you don't have an electric mixer, use a large spoon or whisk and stir hard until batter is smooth.
 
Pour the batter into pans and bake according to these guidelines:
 
Round cake pans: 35 minutes
Bundt pan: 55 minutes
Rectangular pan: 45 minutes
 
Bake until a wooden toothpick inserted in cake comes out clean. If cake is still gooey bake another five or ten minutes, but you do not want the cake to get too dry. When baking is done, cool the cake in its pan or pans. When pans are cool to the touch, you can invert the pans and remove the cakes. Use a butter knife around the edges of the pan to loosen the cake if necessary.
 
Once the cake is completely cool, select the type of frosting you want to use. It is important to make sure that the cake is not the least bit warm before frosting because this will heat the frosting and make it sloppy.

Wheat Free Cake - Selection Criteria For Substitute Flour

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How to bake a wheat free cake?

Generally when you have wheat intolerance you have to eliminate all food with wheat, which includes one of our favorite dessert like cake. If you are a fan of cakes or pastries, do not despair. It is not the end of the world. Good news is you can use other wheat free flour in your cooking.

Even though wheat is the most common flour used in baking, it doesn't mean that it is the only one. There are various other types of flour which can be used for baking. You can also find some specialty shops which has premixes of the various wheat free flour ready for baking. Besides that it is also possible to try recipes for flourless cake.

When looking at a substitute for wheat flour in baking cake, a few considerations have to be in place:

1. Find out the texture of the flour. Some substitute is more refined, by others are coarser. Choose one which is suitable. For example brown rice flour is grainier than the regular flour that you are used to. It is also heavier and normally is not used alone.

2. Taste of the flours. Certain substitute like potato flour has strong potato taste, some like buckwheat can be bitter. Some flour has nutty taste. When choosing a substitute, you may want to opt for those with minimal taste, so that if you add any essence e.g. vanilla or strawberry essence to your cake, you know what it will taste like when it's done! You can also test baking with additional condiments. This may mask the flour taste e.g. adding cinnamon or even chocolate. This is very true especially if the flour taste is very mild.

3. Mixing flour and binding agent. One of the reasons why wheat flour is commonly used for baking is because the gluten in wheat flour binds the dough. If the flour that you choose as substitute doesn't have gluten, then there are several ways to bind the dough. You can substitute half a cup of water with egg white. Another common substitute is guar gum or xanthan gum or add some plain gelatin to your mixture.

4. Color of the flour will affect the looks of your cake. Most likely if you are baking a chocolate cake this doesn't matter very much because the color of the cake is dark. However, if you plan to bake Swiss roll or plain cake then you have to consider the color of the flour itself. Rye flour for example is dark in colour and has a strong flavor. This is very easily done by checking on the color itself before you buy.

5. Gluten content of the flour will indicate whether you need to any binding agent. When baking a wheat free cake - for yourself as well as others, you have to find out whether that person can tolerate gluten. There are people who are allergic to not only wheat but also gluten. In which case the substitute that you choose must also be gluten free.

6. Experiment - no doubt the result that you get may be very different than your normal baking. It may be better! Or....it may not taste as good. Do some experiment because you may come up with tasty and delicious recipes just like others. You may look back with a sense of achievement and gratitude when you discover wonderful recipes which are also nutritious and good for your body.

Good luck in your baking!

What is the Wilton Cake Decorating Method?

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The Wilton cake decorating method is the most common way of decorating cakes. Yes, there are other ways to do it. For example, there's the Lambeth Method and the Australian Method. The Wilton method, however, is the one you see displayed in shop windows. It's the one that you learn when you take a class in a craft or hobby shop. Frankly, it makes the most beautiful and interesting cakes.

There are a couple of things that make the Wilton method different from other approaches to decorating cakes. The first is the kind of frosting that's used. The second is the kind of pan that's used.

Most methods use royal icing. This does actually allow for more intricate designs. With the Wilton method, however, buttercream frosting is used. Since buttercream frosting is heavier, it can be used to make larger, more ornate designs. A design can have large flowers or animals.

The second (and most interesting) difference between the Wilton cake decorating method and others is that the Wilton approach to designing cakes actually uses shaped cake pans. With other methods, only square or round pans are used. With the Wilton take on cake decorating, pans can be shaped like trucks or horses or cartoon characters or anything you please. With other methods, the artistry is all in the icing. With Wilton, the cake is part of the art work too. You don't just draw a car in the icing, the cake itself is the car and the icing is the car's paint job.