Carrot, Maple and Cream Cheese Cake
So much of our written history is the story of men. Memoirs and autobiographies abound, penned by prominent leaders of religions, countries, rebellions and thought. History books are full to the brim with tales of wars men fought in and won. The treaties they negotiated and signed. Churches they designed and built. Scientific mysteries they pondered and solved. Exceptions certainly exist, but for the most part this is true.
Less celebrated are the women, whose sphere of influence was for too long limited to the daily life and unrecorded advancement of the home, children and garden. Not much can be found in the history books about this important work.
Her-story
No, the art of tending the homefire was more often passed on from mother to daughter by watching and doing or from woman to woman at communal gathering places of old such as the wash-house, the well or the public bakehouse. There, currencies as old as time such as recipes and remedies would be freely shared alongside gossip and laughter.
While much advancement in the female realm went unrecorded, one place where the path of our collective progress is there to be found is in cookbooks. The evolution of this recipe for carrot, maple and cream cheese cake is a perfect illustration of this. Carrots were often used in desserts in the old days of the Old World because they provided a natural sweetener at a time when sugar was scarce and unaffordable. In fact, the oldest known recipe for carrot cake dates all the way back to the Middle Ages. It originated as a pudding boiled in a pot over the hearthfire, alongside other simmering vegetables and spit roasting meat. Eventually, ovens became commonplace, as did pre-ground flour, sugar and leavening agents, and the once-popular boiled carrot pudding prototype transformed into the moist cake laden with cream cheese frosting that so many of us enjoy today.
Keep the clutter!
Now, despite unprecedented access to recipes on the internet, I am confident that most of us still have, in some way, shape, or form, a physical collection of recipes. Whether it’s in a bulging manila folder hidden in the back of a cupboard, a tiny recipe box stuffed full of old newspaper and magazine cuttings, or a hand-written scrapbook we’ve nurtured and added to since we were young women, it’s in our nature to keep treasured recipes. I beseech you to resist the urge to declutter. Keep your collections! Tidy them up and put them in order. Cherish them. For the food we prepare tells our story. And in maintaining a record of ‘the keepers’ you are preserving the shape and trace of your own history.
Looking back at my personal collection of recipes, which is now four volumes long, I can see the plot of my own story unfold. As an adolescent, all of my recipes were those of my mother or my grandmothers. As a young woman, I set out on my own and traveled the world. In doing so, my recipe collection expanded to include exotic seasonings from friends, loves and countries that inspired me deeply. When I became a mother, my interest shifted to simple, nourishing cooking that my son’s developing palate would enjoy. Now, I live on a small farm in a fertile valley and I am finding myself drawn way backwards, to animals, fruits, vegetables and grains that nourished my ancestors and their families in northern Europe.
Looking back to move ahead
I am curious about what seeds, cooking techniques and recipes they brought with them when they immigrated to Canada and set up homesteads here. What worked well, and what had to change to respond to the different climate, soil and availability of resources? How can I connect this knowledge with my current landscape? With more volatile temperature variations and limits on access to water, how can we maximize current technologies to reduce waste, but honour the simpler, less environmentally harmful farming techniques of our past? To me, asking these questions is a therapeutic way of connecting to the landscape of my past and grounding myself in the present as I prepare to move forward in a world that feels increasingly unstable.
The adaptation of this recipe from a humble boiled carrot pudding to the mighty Carrot, Maple and Cream Cheese Cake crowd pleaser is a way of joining past to present.
The origins for this recipe date back more than 500 years. From there, as traditions in food were handed down, shared, stolen and adapted, history was marked. It eventually came to me from my French Canadian friend, Rochelle, who I only knew for a little while, but who I cared for very much. She passed away from cancer several years ago, but I think of her warm brown eyes and motherly countenance each time I bake it. The addition of Canadian maple syrup and American cream cheese in the frosting brings a refreshing new world influence to this old world classic.
Carrot, Maple and Cream Cheese Cake
| Ingredients | |
| 1 cup canola oil 2 cups sugar 4 eggs 2 cups flour 2 tsp baking powder 1 tsp baking soda | 1 tsp salt 1 ½ tsp ground cinnamon 3 cups grated carrot 1 cup toasted, chopped walnuts |
Instructions:
Beat together the oil, sugar and eggs. In a separate bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon and then combine with the wet ingredients. Finally, stir in the grated carrots and toasted walnuts. Let the batter rest for one hour.
Pour into two 8” cake pans and bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 45 mins.
| Maple Cream Cheese Frosting | Instructions: |
| 8 oz block of cream cheese, at room temperature 3 cups (or more) icing sugar 2 Tbsp butter 2 Tbsp maple syrup 1 tsp almond extract | Stir the ingredients together in a bowl, and frost your cake liberally. |
About the author
Jessica Johnson runs a small, traditional Bed and Breakfast from a vineyard in the Similkameen Valley of British Columbia, Canada.
Raised to be a strong, independent career woman but now a vigneron’s wife and stay-at-home mom on a fledgling homestead, she is clumsily yet happily establishing roots in her new landscape.
An expert at almost nothing but curious about nearly everything, Jessica writes about her adventures in rural B.C. where she raises her son and other wild creatures and is learning the old ways to preserve and grow food.
