Transcript
Hello, this is Mojo from Unpretending’s Substack.
I am doing another episode of Mojo’s Kitchen.
Now the reason I am cooking today, it is because the little girl here is turning ahh 10 years old and in her birthday party, she wants a carrot cake. Carrot cake. You hear? Not chocolate, not vanilla, not strawberry, carrot. She like carrot cake, so I come out and I will do this carrot cake for you’s all.
Now the recipe that I am using is a little bit of mine but mostly comes from Donna Hay https://www.donnahay.com.au/recipes/s/basic-carrot-cake.
Very, very good is this Donna Hay, I like using her recipes, okay. Right at the moment we have nothing on the bench, apron on so we do not get flour all over us and we have washed our hands. What we will have to do is watch our hands again because I am going to take you out to get fresh eggs from the chickens. The best thing to do is have very, very fresh eggs from the chickens.
We come out here, out the backyard, open the chicken coop, say,
“Hello girls, hello, how are you?” There is one egg and two egg and we'll get the chickens, good, “Thank you very much for your egg, thank you very much, thank you.”
And we shut that again and go back into the house. Now chicken eggs are very, very good for you, and it is very good to have chickens.
What we do is get all out ingredients out, so here we have two eggs, and everything really needs to be room temperature okay? Very, very important. The reason why things baked are better with them being room temperature is because it bakes more evenly, so just imagine that you have a lovely the cake batter all ready to go but you used ice cold carrots, you see, that will affect how the cake is going to be cooked. Do you understand? Yes, so we have that.
So what we're going to do is, and you might have to excuse me because I am going to use some different ingredients a little bit, mix it up a little bit from the original Donna Hay recipe okay? So what I am going to do is, first of all you need to get a mixer or a bowl, with what did they call it? Beaters, you need to beat, beat the oil and the sugar very, very well together. What we get here, you can measure with the metric cup if you need, or you can measure with a kitchen scale, like for example, but what I shall do is measure twice just to see which is more accurate, not that it matters, but some recipes it does matter. Hold on a minute.
I have my kitchen scales right here, these are lovely little kitchen scales, they are battery operated. Now I turn them on, and it is in grams. I don't know what the Americans use for grams, millilitres. Oh I have to go, hold on, hold on.
I do apologise for that, that was MultiMes on the telephone, and we had a little chat, because she is in America. We had a little chat and then I come back and I'm going to do the carrot cake.
So what I am doing is turning the unit to millilitres, that's what you do! You do ounces instead of grams, I'm turning into millilitres instead of…, fluid ounces! Well there you go. Ounces, fluid ounces, millilitres, grams.
Okay, let's listen here, what is it going to be? ½ a cup is 108 millilitres, so we need to make it 100 and I'm spilling the oil all over. Oh No! Now it is just everywhere. Okay hold on, 108 millilitres, pour that into my mixing bowl and then 108 + 10 is 118, oh but then I don't know, ahh, I do feel like I'd like to start again, I don’t know how much it is in fluid ounces. So that's what you do. You need to do 125 millilitres which is a little bit more than half a cup okay? Okay.
But now I need a different cup because I have put, sorry you are on my paper towel, I have put oil all over the kitchen scales! I tell you what, is just, it is not as messy as it seems, it could be messy, but it's not because I clean it up as I go. Ahh see there you go. So, 125 millilitres is in there and then I need…, it says ahh yes see on the other recipe it says 3/4 of a cup. It is interesting, I think I am going to have to go with the other recipe cause that seems a little, little bit more correct, because 125 millilitres is not a half a cup you get it all wrong if you listen to that one. So, I apologise Donna Hay, it’s just not the same.
Okay, maybe it's just the people who make that recipe on the Internet okay. So there, I need One cup of brown sugar and I have to use a different cup, now where is my different cup? Oh my goodness, oh excuse me there's was messy over here, okay, so. What I need is dark brown sugar. In Australia it’s just brown sugar, but I learned the difference in America is dark brown sugar, okay? We’ll just open the new packet and pour it onto the old stuff in just a little bit. Now on this one it says 1 cup of brown sugar and on this one it says one and a quarter cup of brown sugar. That’s 300 grams firmly packed. See I'm doing two recipes at the same time.
So, what we do we put this here, we turn it to grams again, grams. Hello? Hello? Yeah grams. I put this in, we went 300 grams so let’s see if that is one and ¼ firmly packed? 300 grams. You have to firm, in fact, brown sugar because it's so light and airy. That is not 300 grams. That is not 300 grams at all. It’s like 2 cups would be 300 grams. Yes, I'm sorry but this carrot cake recipe over there has got to go. I feel like I have to start all over again because it is not right, it just makes me infuriated if it is not exactly right. Hmm okay so I am going to do, yes, this one cup of brown sugar firmly packed on this side, Okay? Okay. Now you put it into the mixer, there you go, there you go.
One thing that Donna Hay does say, and it is a billion good reasons why, you want to blend the wet ingredients very, very, very well even if it takes 10 minutes, for when if you are doing a butter and sugar. But that's for creaming, you cream that. But this is oil and sugar, and we’ll see how it goes. Alright I'm going to pause you for a little minute, I will take a photo of what it looks like now, and then I'll take a photo of what it looks like once I finished creaming the, ahh or whisking, it together okay? Just wait a moment. Yes, I press pause.
Okay, I came back a little bit early because I needed to let you know that you might need a spatula to scrape down the sides while you are creaming. So you scrape it down like so, that’s the way, to make sure that you are creaming it evenly. Then wait I’ll turn that on in a little minute. What you need to also do is, what I didn't do is, you need to put the oven on. Now this recipe that I am now doing it calls for 180 degrees Celsius, which I do believe it could be 325 degrees Fahrenheit. Don't quote me on that, I’m just remembering because we had a kitchen oven, back in the day that was Fahrenheit, so I knew that, so it had also, do you know what it had? It was the best oven. It had a door and then you open that door and then there was a glass door behind the door, so you could see your cake and it wouldn't affect the heating and so it was very good.
So, what you need to do put your oven shelf in the middle of your oven, so it bakes evenly okay. Then you also need to get, now I am using a square, I think it is, ahh what would that be in inches? Oh dear, it could be ah, so I’m using a square, so it would be like a 28 inch, 8 1/2 inch by something inches, I don't know, that it's like a 20-centimetre, 22-centimetre square pan. But you can use a round pan, I don’t know, it doesn't really matter, but you know carrot cake it needs to be square; don't you think? I think so, okay. Alright so you do that then I will go back to creaming. Okay I'll be back.
Okay now what I did, was, I was thinking,
“No this does not look the same as it usually does,” and so I we went back over to the Donna Hay recipe and it’s saying add the eggs and sugar and the vanilla and the oil, altogether in an electric mixer on high for 8 minutes.
So, what I would have done is mix the, the sugar and oil for a long time, and then one egg at a time, you beat it one at a time, and then add the vanilla later. So you could choose what you want to do, whatever is like convenient. To me I like ahh taking my time, really enjoying myself, while I'm doing this. So while this is beating, I am grating the carrots, okay? I have some skinny carrot there nice and fresh, you can tell 'cause it is not growing edges at the side, and it is looking less skin, the more, it gets a lot more skin the older it is you see? And so less skin smooth and smooth, it is lovely and fresh. We do have carrots out in the garden, but the carrots do not taste the same as the ones in the store. So with eggs, I like eggs from chickens from my house, but from carrots, I like carrots from the store, okay? It's a bit different but you know, I am little bit fussy, just a little bit, okay, so.
I put you on pause for one more second while I finish grating the carrots, we need to have about two cups of carrots that would be about two large carrots or I would say 3 medium, I'm doing three skinny medium okay? So I grate that unless you want to hear the grating? I'm not sure do you want the hear the grating or not I don't know. I would do it just a little bit the grating for you. I don't know why you would want this grating noise so I would not do anymore. Now I am not sure about you, but I like to use the finer grating holes to do the grating rather than the big ones. I don't know I just like it; it is much better for me.
Okay so we have the eggs, now because I am mostly using the other recipe which is actually if you want to know is from the Woman's Weekly recipe; https://www.womensweeklyfood.com.au/amp/recipes/carrot-cake-19967.
Women's Weekly is the recipes that umm if you were brought up in 1970s and 1980s or who even knows it in the 1990s, as the mothers did a lot of Women's Weekly recipes. My mother, well, I don’t know if she was such my mother, but the woman who was there she ahh, she did not like to cook and that is why we did lot more cooking now because she did not like it. I don't know why; I don't think she enjoyed food very much. Anyway, that’s not here nor there.
So I have these eggs from the chickens. Now these are a little bit smaller eggs, some people will tell you what size eggs to get, these are sort of, these are from a chicken eh, they’re chicken eggs. Crack it in there, you crack it in there and then you compost, you compost the egg. Okay? The egg, the shell. You could break it you could break…, hey wait, I was supposed to beat them one at a time, hold on, hold on. I am so busy thinking and talking that I'm not listening to my own head. Oh, are you listening to this? I better pause you again, I forgot, hold on.
This is not the good, this is not the good one. Okay then I do the next egg and then you compost that one, and if you if you scrunch it up or if you blend your dried eggshells in the blender and sprinkle it on your garden, it will keep away the snails and the slugs from your vegetables. Add that there's another thing that is really good, called, I never could understand how you pronounce it’s called, dia, diabolical earth or dia dieshabieka I don’t know what the earth is called (Editor’s note: It’s Diatomaceous Earth) but I need some sort of stuff and it is very, very good, okay, but eggs work as well too and it's less expensive, you see? Okay.
Now I do this again. Now the other thing is you need to remember to scrape it down with your spatula in between doing the eggs, there you go, scraping down. Now I'm going to do a third egg, only because I'm using the other recipe and, what happened to my third egg? Oh, this one’s a white egg, this one is nice. And ahh, what am I saying? Ahh, I don’t know what I am saying but ahh, I’ve lost my train of thought, it’s all gone. Now I'm going to mix that again here we go.
Okay, so I'll be pausing that in the middle, so you do not have to hear it for who needs to listen to minutes and minutes okay? And now I will get the vanilla extract, now if it is nice and thick you do not need too much of it, this one is not the real deal unfortunately, so I make it at 2 teaspoons, or you could use one or one and a half whatever you like it doesn't really matter. Now I’m going to mix that up and then I will meet you back here to do the dry ingredients okay? Here we go.
Okay so there you go, I have also taken a photo so I can show you the difference, it is light and creamy, very, very good, okay? I have also grated the two cups of a carrot and now we're going to do the flour okay, so what we need for the flour is a separate bowl. I like to use a glass bowl, but it is only because like I said I a-little bit fussy and that it makes me feel much more like a cook, you see? Okay. So we need to get out plain flour, (Editors note: All Purpose Flour), and it calls for one and a 1/2 cups of self-raising flour on one recipe and ooh ahh one and 3/4 or 260 grams, one and three quarter cups or 260 grams of plain powder, flour, so I'm going to do one and the half cups of…, 1 and 1/2 cups, that's what I'm going to do, 1 and a half. So I, it’s in a paper bag and I pour in.
Now this thing is with flour, and I do not know if I have told you this before. But you, yes, I do believe I have. Now is not good to dip your cup into the flour because what you're doing is you are packing it down like we did with the with the brown sugar, and you’ll get more weight okay? So, it will not be the same. So you need to pour it okay? You need to pour it, so and then what I like to do, is I just get a flat butter knife and you just scrape it off so it’s nice and even okay? Now and I do that with the half cup too, that's not the half that is a third. Ah here is a 1/2 ooh, that has oil in it, goodness gracious me, we, we-we just get that paper towel, and we just wipe out the oil because otherwise the flour will just sit in the little cup. Or I could just estimate into my big cup, but you know, I am trying to do the right thing here, who knows I may ruin the whole recipe, but nobody will know you see, no, see. Then I just scrape this here, scrape it so it's nice and I pour it into the glass bowl.
Now neither recipe call for this, but I always do one pinch of salt, one pinch of salt into everything that I have flour, I don’t know what it does, but I believe it makes it better. Now because it is plain flour, I’m going to use baking powder and what I believe is two teaspoons for every one cup okay? So, we get the teaspoon which, ‘Heavens to Murgatroyd’, it has a, ahh, what is it called, I need to wipe it out again, it has ahh err vanilla extract. Alright so we need two, then we need one, because we have half so “two for one and one for half, there we go and all the other”. Now what you can do instead of ahh sifting, you may get ahh, oh excuse me, I’m throwing things away, you may get a whisk. Just a whisk, I just whisk and what you're doing is your aerating the flour the same as sifting and you are whisking it well so you are mixing, you are mixing the baking powder, with the flour and it will rise very nicely okay? Okay. Now, we put that away because we do not want to have things out, because we have a very small kitchen in Australia, and ah we have to put things away because there is no space okay.
Now, next we are up to our spices, just check and make sure it is true. Oh, this one here calls for baking soda. Hmmm I will do a little bit just a little bit because, if I can find the baking soda, oh that is not baking soda, hold on, where is the baking soda? It should be in this one here because it says this is where it should be. Ah-Ha! This is, it is here. Okay, oh excuse me.
Baking soda is very, very good if you have gas in your stomach, okay? Much better than those other, what do you call it? Now I am going to do a big, large pinch which is probably about half, perhaps just a little bit less than half a teaspoon. Or you could use half a teaspoon, or you could use a full teaspoon, it really doesn’t matter. So, I give that another whisk, so we are mixing, mixing, mixing. Okay now this is the good part, this is where you use your imagination okay? So, it is probably going to call for one teaspoon of cinnamon, but I will use two. Okay? Oh, in the Donna Hay recipe it calls for two teaspoons which I am going to use, and in the other one it calls for…, Oh my goodness, it only calls for half a teaspoon, my goodness there’s no spice in that one whatsoever no taste, no, no, no.
Okay, and in the Donna Hay one, it calls for one teaspoon of ginger now, I like to put ginger in a lot of baking because it is a secret ingredient, people go,
“Oorh this is so really good, what is that?” and I say,
“It is a secret”. But usually it is ginger, okay? Ah and it doesn’t say that anywhere in the other one so there. And then it, in the Donna Hay one it says half a teaspoon of ground nutmeg, and as you can remember, I said I have these, these whole ones, they are so good. If you can get whole spices and ground them yourself, they stay fresher, so much more fresh, okay?
So, we need to get a little grater, and half a teaspoon, oh excuse me, not too much because it has a bit of a “Tt, Tt, Tt,” taste like that to it. There we go, and we put that back in there, and then in the Women’s Weekly one it does call for, ahh it says, half a teaspoon of mixed spice, I will do a just a pinch, so I get the mixed spice. Oh no, no-no, I get a little bit of all spice, ooh just a taste, just, ooh, just a sprinkle, a sprinkle of all spice, that’s it. Because oorh it’s so good for you and the mixed spice…, nah this is boring, boring mixed spice, okay.
Then we use our whisk again, whisk, whisk, whisk, and just stir it around and around and mix it all up together. Next do you know what it is going to do? Ahh okay, I need to tell you something okay? Both recipes call for walnut. Walnut is not good for this body, ahh this body does not like walnut very much, it makes this body’s tongue get a little swollen, no anaphylactic, but it is no good, no good, so we don’t, we don’t do that. So, we can eat it, it’s just no good, okay?
So now, what it says is, ahh you fold it lightly with the carrots, walnut and vanilla until combined, no we won’t do that. We’ll look at the other one and it says, ah… ahh, ooh, it says, what? What does it say? Oh, oh, okay, okay. The Donna Hay, one says you add the carrot first, and the other one says you add the carrot second. So, you can do whatever you like, the thing must do is, not over mix. You want it to be light and fluffy, so I like to get, a nice now, Mrs Shields in my year eight class, she taught us you get a spoon for folding okay. I did have some bigger spoons but the children they stole them and played with them somewhere and they have become lost, is very sad, um so, is very sad.
So what I like to do is actually, is do the flour first so you do, I do about half, half of first, there we go, you pour it in, ooh I take a photo for you so you can see, hold on, orr, camera! Okay. That’s half there, look at that ooh, is very pretty, there you go. And then, I put you back, like so. And then I fold you in, oohy, ooh its got that scrappy sound, I do not like that scrappy sound, maybe I, maybe I use a wooden spoon here, hold on. Wooden spoon, I do have a one here, this is good, I will use this one here. Orr much better, I do not like that scrappy sound, it’s no good for nervous systems you see, scrappy sounds. There we go, we give it a good stir, well not a stir, you fold it.
Now when you fold it, what you do is you scoop under, you pick it up and you turn it over, okay? Over, and over and over. The difference to stirring is you go round and round and round, this is, you scoop it, pick it up, turn it over. Okay and when that one’s done, you pour in the other half, look at that, and you do the same. We scoop and scoop, and you do not want to over mix it okay? Then reason being is it would not be light and fluffy, okay? So, do that, you get it all good, in like so. Orr you can see the flour and the, and the wet ingredients are mixing quite well, quite well.
And then we do the same with half the carrot. You could probably use almonds or something like that, but this is for children, and I cannot image very many of these children will like carrot cake anyway, so we are actually going to make some brownies as well, but I probably won’t record that because who wants to hear thousands of recordings, not anybody, no. So, we do that, make sure it’s all nice and good. And then you need to pour it into your prepared pan, okay? Now, please remember it is good to line your pan if you line your pan. In Australia we have what is called baking paper, I have not seen it in America but that does not mean that it does not exist okay? It is just nonstick baking and cooking paper. Does it tell us what it is? No, but I will tell you it is not the same as waxed paper, okay? Okay. And you can cook, it does not burn, okay? Well do not quote me on that because who knows maybe it does and I’ve just never had it burnt on me.
Now just make sure the flour on the bottom is evenly blended and then you pour it into your prepared pan, in the middle, pour. Oh, it’s looking good, is looking really good, oh dear and I will show you. I should have shown you what it looked like before I put the carrot in, but I will show you again. Okay you put it in. It should be very pouring, if it’s not pouring, if it’s like scooping, then you know you haven’t, you not have enough moisture okay, I’m going to take a photo, here we go, oh there’s a bit of shadow there, oh and you can see the bubbles. That is lovely. Lovely, lovely, then you put it in your oven. Now it does say, now interesting enough, in the Donna Hay recipe, it says 35-40 minutes on lower temperature at 325, hey? Wait a minute, isn’t 325, 180? Oh, now I’m very confused, but that’s 160, okay? 180 and it says 55 minutes so that’s, that’s not make much sense. I’m going to turn it down to 170 just to make sure, so it’s in between you know, okay and I’m going to do it for 55 minutes and I will put it on the timer on the ah oven, and then I will put it on the timer, oh wait I, I did take a photo, oh my goodness, I’m losing my mind. Ahh, err, I put it on the timer on the oven and then I put it on the timer on my phone because the timer on the oven doesn’t bing, ding too loudly and I’ll forget and now I do the cleaning up and uh this time I hope I take a photo when it comes out. And then, cause the children will be home by then, 55 minutes, and then hopefully I take a photo when we make the cream cheese icing, I’m not making that just yet. But I, it’s very, very simple, okay. You take it easy, maybe I come back for the cream cheese icing.
Okay, I need to let you, I have just come, just for a little minute, okay? It is days and days, very much days later. You see they forgot, I forgot and the next morning they had to make the cream cheese icing and there was no way I was going to come out here, with the family out here and just talk to you all. So, the other one here, they did that, and they were no talking so. I have come now so that I can add onto this the cream cheese icing, okay? And is going to be very small, very small and then I put it, I make another cake, but I will not tell you about the other cake because I already made the cake okay?
So what we need is your mixer. Of course, you will have washed it up while the cake was cooking and you also need, let me find a spot to put you, just here, okay. Now you need 225 grams of cream cheese, now don’t buy that, don’t buy the lite stuff, get the heavy stuff, if you’re going to eat a carrot cake, you might as well enjoy it. The light stuff will have a, “Tt, Tt, Tt”, yucky taste to it okay? Is cream cheese and then it needs to be room temperature again and 225 grams, and chop it up and put it in the mixer, okay? Now the next thing you will need is 60 grams of stick butter. You can use that with your scales, oh dear, hold on a minute, let me just chop off this. 60 grams, this is supposed to be room temperature, it is not, so just excuse me. Ah over here, there we go we want 60 grams, Oh my goodness! You’ll never believe it, I just got the 60 grams exactly, okay? So, you pop that, chop it up too, like this and you pop it into the mixer, okay?
Okay, now the next thing is, it does call for vanilla extract, just one teaspoon and you’ll never believe it because I used it all up the other day, no I have nothing. So I will use a little bit of lemon juice, now this is not from a real lemon, it is from a from a fridge, it is juice in a little juice thingy, not the lemonade stuff, no just juice, okay lemon juice, or a squeeze a lemon juice from the lemon. And then you need some icing mixture, that’s ooh let me tell you, sorry about that. Now the icing mixture is half a cup, okay? Half a cup, sorry it is in plastic, I do know, while they were listening to the, oh that’s not a half cup, where is my half cup? There. While they were listening to the recording to do the editing, they said,
“Orr that plastic, paper bag,” and all the other. They didn’t like that at all. Okay. So, what we are going to do we need our scrapper, our spatula, because we are putting it in the mixer, mixing it all up. So I turn it on, ooh yes and it will mix it and it will mix and it will mix, and it will be perfect, and I’ll take a photo of it, and I will show it to you okay? And then that is how you have it.
You have the carrot cake, which I tell you what, it was the perfect carrot cake, it was so light and airy and fluffy, and it tasted so good. And the cream cheese icing, it is like ahh, cheesecake, not that baked cheesecake, no, no, no, that’s no good, but the cheesecake that is not baked. It is such a delicious taste, it was so yum, I could just eat it all day long.
So, this has been Mojo, ahh for Mojo’s Kitchen. And I do hope that you enjoyed this very, very good, lovely recipe, okay? Okay.
I will see you later, for the next time. Okay. Bye-Bye.
Team Mojo! 💪
I miss Mojo's cooking. Looks delish!