Carrot cake!

Today is my mother-in-law's birthday and I made a cake.  A few days ago, I volunteered and we decided that I could make the cake in a stealth operation while my in-laws were out.  It was not a stealth operation at all.  At various points I had to hide a cake behind my back while slinking around the house.  Several people have also all but told her-- from "Why is there icing sugar on the list?" to "Oh, I'm making a carrot cake now, too!"  We could have, perhaps should have, come clean about the whole thing.  Then we could be sitting around waiting for cake time, instead of sitting around pretending that we are not waiting for cake time.  It's even worse for me, probably, because I know exactly what we are waiting for and I'm so excited to share this particular cake with everyone.

This cake is one of the recipes that we make year after year in my family.  Every September we make this carrot cake for my mother.  Then pumpkin pie for my sister's birthday and strawberry tarts for mine.  The carrot cake sets the bar high.  To me, this carrot cake was the one, the only, choice for this birthday.  After we had a looong conversation with a local friend about carrot cake today (I know!) we know that Gill loves carrot cake, but doesn't know how to make it.  I plan to pass this recipe along, if it goes over well.  Which I think it will.  Because this cake is delicious--fluffy, spicy and moist.  It's been tweaked and modified over the years, but actually less so than other recipes in our repertoire.  It is originally from the 1975 Williamsburg Cookbook.  This is what my mother e-mailed to me, when I said I wanted to make The Carrot Cake (Thanks mom!  I hope you don't mind my copy/pasting... and see, it turned out great!):

Spicy Carrot Cake  (my mom's notes)

1.5   Cups Vegetable Oil (I use corn, in a pinch safflower, if desperate peanut, never olive!)
2.5   Cups Sugar
4      Eggs, Separated

2.5   Cups Sifted Flour
1.4   Teaspoons Baking Powder
  .5   Teaspoon Baking Soda
  .25  Teaspoon Salt
  .25  Teaspoon Grated Nutmeg
  .5    Teaspoon Ginger
1       Teaspoon Cinnamon  (I use a heavy hand with the spices...)

1.5    Cups Grated Raw Carrots
1       Cup Chopped Pecans   (I omit) (other additions: coconut raisins, currants...) Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Grease and flour a 10 inch tube cake pan.

Mix the oil and sugar.  Beat in the egg yolks one at a time.  Continue to beat and add 5 Tablespoons very hot water.  (at this point  the mixture should become cloudy then very smooth and almost shiny – you are essentially cooking the eggs a bit with the hot water) Sift and mix dry ingredients.  Add to egg mixture.

Stir in the carrots and pecans.

Beat the egg whites until they form stiff peaks.  Fold gently into the batter. ( this is a heavy batter, lightened by the folded froth)
Pour into the prepared pan and bake for 60 to 70 minutes until done. ( test with a toothpick or straw)
Cool right side up in the pan for 15 minutes, then hang until turned out.  Cool completely.

Drizzle with a Glaze made of .75 Cup Confectioner’s Sugar mixed with 3 Tablespoons Lemon Juice.  ( or dust with sifted  Confectioners Sugar) (or ice with Cream Cheese Icing made with Butter, Cream Cheese and Confectioner’s Sugar...) Note: I actually just mixed some sugar packets (nicked from the cafe where we had coffee this afternoon) into some creme fraiche and poured it over... the aforementioned icing sugar was a long story, but suffice to say we have plenty of cornmeal now.

Chicken Cacciatore

It's definitely feeling wintry here and some thick, cold fog set in.  We made Chicken Cacciatore (adapted from a Delia Smith recipe) for dinner tonight to use up some of the last fresh tomatoes of the season.  Making a tomato-based dish at my in-laws' also invites hilarious toh-may-toh vs. toh-mah-toh accent comparisons.  I forgot that I had intended to blog about it and so it was consumed without any photographic evidence.  Imagine, if you will, a red stew with mushrooms and some golden brown lumps.  Those lumps are the chicken.  It was surprising easy and tasted both rich and healthy (in the good way).  [Jack even co-cooked, which made preparations fantastic.  Jack cooks quite often, but he's a lone chef due to mild perfectionism.  I'm not giving up on him, however, because everything about cooking is more fun together.] I would highly recommend this classic recipe of Italian origin.  Here's how we made it:

* 1 casserole dish for stovetop cooking with a lid *
- Roughly 1 free range chicken, jointed into 8 pieces
- 2 onions, chopped roughly
- 10 mushrooms, quartered (this is optional... and where I went rogue on Delia)
- 2 mashed garlic cloves
- 1 tbs. of fresh rosemary "leaves" (really spikes) bruised and chopped
- 1 bay leaf
- 2 cups of dry white wine 
- 1 tbs. of white wine vinegar
- 7-10 tomatoes, peeled (poured over with boiling water to make the skin separate) and chopped
- 1 tbs. tomato paste.


1)  Prep the tomatoes first for sure, or used canned tomatoes.
2)  Heat a glug of olive oil to shimmerine in the casserole dish.  Salt and pepper the chicken.  Brown chicken in batches. Transfer to a plate.
3)  Here I browned the mushrooms in the remaining oil, draining off excess liquid.  Transfer to a plate.
4)  Add more olive oil if necessary and add in onion.  Turn heat to medium and sauté the onion until clear and browning at the edges.
5)  Add the garlic, and combine for 1 minute.
6)  Add rosemary, bay leaf, wine, vinegar, tomatoes and tomato paste. Season liberally.
7)  Simmer the sauce for around 20 minutes uncovered.  It will reduce by 1/2.
--If you're making brown rice, as we did, this is the point to start it--
8)  Add in the chicken and mushrooms. Stir to combine and make sure chicken is covered.
9) Cook for about 40 minutes (in my opinion, a half-hour would have worked as the chicken was a little overcooked)

Buen provecho!