Origin of Carrot Cake

Carrot Cake History 

Cake is a term with a long history, the word is of Viking origin from the old Norse - "Kaka". Cake denotes a baked flour confection sweetened with sugar and honey; it is mixed with eggs and often, but not invariably, with milk and fat and it has a porous texture from the mixture rising during cooking. The distinctions between bread, bun and biscuit are blurred as techniques for baking and leavening developed and eating patterns changed.  Some Roman breads were enriched with eggs and butter and much have reached a cake-like consistency although still named as breads.

Here's my all time favorite carrot cake recipe, go ahead and give it a try!

 

According to food historians, our modern carrot cake most likely descended from Medieval carrot puddings enjoyed by people in Europe. No one really knows where carrot cake came from, It looks like it did evolve from the Carrot Pudding of medieval times, during the middle ages sugar and other sweeteners were difficult or expensive to come by in Britain and carrots had long been used as sugar substitutes. Carrot Pudding history here.

Carrot cake and its precursors took several forms including baked in pastry, like pumpkin pie steamed and served with sauce, like plum pudding baked in pans and served with icing, like cake

You can find recipes for carrot pudding as far back as 1591 A Booke of Cookrye, John Evelyn's 'Discourse of Sallets' in 1699,  Receipts (recipes) of Pastry and Cookery For the Use of his Scholars, By Ed. Kidder (1720-1740) and Hannah Glasse's 'Art of Cookery' of 1747, but no reference to carrot cake until the 19th century:

On the New York Cookbook (1992), Molly O'Neill says that George Washington was served a carrot tea cake at Fraunces Tavern in lower Manhattan. The date: November 25, 1783. The occasion: British Evacuation Day. She offers an adaptation of that early recipe, which was printed in The Thirteen Colonies Cookbook (1975) by Mary Donovan, Amy Hatrack, and Frances Schull. It is quite close to the carrot cakes of today.

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