Carrot Cake Recipe

According to the food historians, our modern carrot cake most likely descended from medieval carrot puddings enjoyed by people in this part of Europe. Carrots are an old world food. Imported to the Americas by European settlers. In the 20th century carrot cake was re-introduced as a "healthy alternative" to traditional desserts. The first time was due to necessity; the second time was spurred by the popular [though of times misguided] wave of health foods. Is today's carrot cake healthy? It can be. It all depends upon the ingredients.

George C. Page was your typical farmer boy from Nebraska. He had a dream, and decided to go for it. He left for Los Angeles in the mid-1920 with only $2.30. George worked as a busboy and dishwasher (No, you didn't plug him into the wall) until he had earned $1,000. George then bought a vacant store and named it Mission-Pak. Mission-Pak shipped Californian fruits as holiday gifts. Mission-Paks was a huge success. Ten years later, he had eight plants, thousands of workers, and a million dollars.

Surprise! When Pearl Harbor was bombed, George volunteered for active duty in the military. Surprise! George was classified as an "essential industrialist" So instead of joining the army, he learned how to dehydrate vegetables. Germans were sinking all of our ships full of food, and the Army needed all the food they could get. Dehydration was perfect!

When the war ended, George didn't have his job anymore. He had plenty of food though... thousands of 5-gallon tins of dehydrated carrots, that is. What would he do with all those carrots?

George went back to the restaurant where he used to work as a non-electric dishwasher. Baked Carrots? Stewed Carrots? Fried Carrots? Blech.

Finally, they put some cut up carrots in a cake mix. Viola! A delicious dish was born. Everyone wanted carrot cake and George could finally sell his carrots to stores and restaurants, along with a recipe for carrot cake. A few months later, the carrots were all in the delicious cakes, and being served nation-wide.

In the middle Ages in Europe, when sweeteners were scarce and expensive, carrots were used in sweet cakes and desserts. In Britain...carrot puddings...often appeared in recipe books in the 18th and 19th centuries. Such uses were revived in Britain during the second World War, when the Ministry of Food disseminated recipes for carrot Christmas pudding, carrot cake, and so on and survive in a small way to the present day. Indeed, carrot cakes have enjoyed a revival in Britain in the last quarter of the 20th century. They are perceived as 'healthy' cakes, a perception fortified by the use of brown sugar and whole meal flour and the inclusion of chopped nuts, and only slightly compromised by the cream cheese and sugar icing which appears on some versions.