Spaghetti and Gravy: Grandma's Carrot Cake

Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Grandma's Carrot Cake

When I was in fourth grade, Mom's parents moved in with us. Grandma and Grandpa had their own "in-law" apartment in our house, but we still spent a lot of time with them, especially hanging out on the front porch. I feel lucky to have grown up and spent so much time with Grandma and Grandpa. Today, July 31, would have been Grandma's 94th birthday. In her memory, here is a terrific cake straight from Grandma's recipe box. This blog will still focus on Mom's recipes, but there are a number of other family recipes that deserve to be here. I know that you will enjoy this one.

Grandma had a serious sweet tooth, which I definitely inherited from her. She made this cake often and so did Mom. The recipe is quite simple. For this post, I used grated carrots, but pumpkin could just as easily be used. Now, when I gave Mom a piece of this cake, she was disappointed that there were no nuts in the cake. Grandma regularly used nuts in the cake. While I like nuts, I usually do not like nuts in cake. And, as you can see from Grandma's own handwritten recipe, you can add nuts if you want. Grandma's recipes were typically direct and without full explanation of the steps. But, also, there is no need to follow a strict recipe; the cake will come out just fine no matter the method used to mix the ingredients together. Use a bundt pan, or as Grandma noted, a tube pan. Also, the recipe for the frosting is not written on the recipe here, but Grandma used the cream cheese frosting recipe noted below for this cake (whether carrot or pumpkin).