I love carrot cake and had a huge craving for it. I’ve been toting around a recipe from Family Circle for weeks, which I believe was excerpted from the Ski House Cookbook (co-authored by one of the photo editors of Family Circle).
The beau's mother turned me onto Penzey’s Spices, a spice catalog which has an outpost in Grand Central Market. Spices can be relatively expensive, and I hate buying large containers when all a recipe may call for is a ‘pinch.’ Penzey’s has a wide selection of fresh spices at very reasonable prices (I believe they are often cheaper than the grocery store). I bought some nutmeg and the best cinnamon ever! I was just going for the regular (a.k.a. cheap) stuff, but the ladies at the counter turned me onto a Vietnamese Cassia variety that was stronger than regular cinnamon. I could not resist its aroma and thought it would be just the thing for an awesome carrot cake.
The cake turned out great, they were a bit tough to remove from the pans (I think I overfilled them and I had to bake them longer--- the cakes were quite heavy in the center--- I don’t think my cake pans bake that evenly--- can anyone recommend some good ones?) but after it was iced, it looked perfectly homemade. My friend D and I used some food coloring to dye the leftover icing and drew a carrot on top just for fun :)
Penzey's Spices
Grand Central Market (Grand Central Terminal)
Lexington Avenue & 43rd St.
http://www.penzeys.com/cgi-bin/penzeys/shophome.html
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