This Food in History #26 Carrot Cake

Nov 30

Nov 30 This Food in History #26 Carrot Cake

Hello and welcome to another episode of This Food in History! Today’s food is thanks to my coworkers at a cake competition we had! Carrot Cake! I had never had carrot cake before and I heard a tale of the war between raisins vs walnuts and thought I might check the history to see what I could find.

What I found was that the history of carrot cake was not as deep as I might have thought. Carrots which are a member of the parsley family, likely originated as a domesticated root crop in Central Asia. Afghanistan, Iran, and Uzbekistan respectively, about 1,100 years ago. Some evidence implies carrots might have been in the Roman Empire a little earlier. There’s also wild seeds found in Swiss and German campsites between 3,000 and 5,000 years earlier so the wild crop is at least that old. Fun fact, the historical color of carrots was actually a purple shade, but Holland farmers bred them into today’s orange color around the 17th century.

We then are going to jump to the Medieval ages where carrots are used as a sweetener in a pudding dessert. Around the 10th century we see evidence of this dish in a recipe from Switzerland. The English also have an interesting carrot based recipe that pops up by the 1500s where you stuff a carrot with pudding. This pudding seems to have been used in multiple regions, not just Medieval Europe. India has a version called gajar halwa which appeared in about the 17th century, and was attributed to Dutch influence. It takes shredded carrots and caramelizes them in ghee with sugar, spice, dried fruits, nuts and cooked in milk. Iraq also has a dessert called khabis al-jazar that uses carrots, milk, spices like clove, ginger, and nutmeg. Add some nuts, dates and then steam it. It settles into a pudding.

We know that we’re still more in a pudding than a cake, when it makes the pages of ‘The Art of Cookery, Made Plain and Easy’ in 1747. But then a record pops up of George Washington being served carrot cake on British Evacuation Day in 1783 in Manhattan at Fraunces Tavern. Something happened between those dates that is not certain. The trajectory is said to go from the pudding to being baked with a crust like a pie, to steamed with a sauce and molded in pans with icing.

The first recipe for carrot cake doesn’t show its face until 1814 in a French cookbook, Vol. 2 of L’art du Cuisinier by Antonie Beauvilliers. Beauvilliers was a former chef to Louis XVI. He called it "Gâteau de Carotte." and this was copied by competitors by 1824. When publishing an English version he translated it to Carrot Cakes. Some places state it’s not until 1827 but one thing is certain, it was definitely a French cookbook. Another recipe we see in the 19th century comes out of Switzerland again, in a housekeeping school of Kaiseraugst. Carrot cake is reported as one of the most popular cakes by the Culinary Heritage of Switzerland and is often used for children’s birthdays.

Another notable recipe comes out of the Jewish community. Joyce Goldstein’s Cucina Ebraica has a recipe that originated in the 17th century from jewish settlers in Italy. This had a Torta di carote del veneto, which translates to Venetian Carrot cake.

Carrot cake now exists but it’s not too wild yet, and of note, it seems these recipes still don’t have the raisins or walnuts really. Shifts in the carrot cake started happening in the 1900s. The United Kingdom comes up a lot here.

During WWII, supplies were dwindling and back home, food was being rationed. One such method that was heavily pushed was to use carrots as a sweetener. The government apparently started a propaganda campaign for this as it could be grown by the residents. The ministry might even have told the public that successful British gunners during the Blitzkreig was linked to carrot consumption according to some reports. The Ministry of Food created a character called Doctor Carrot and a friend Potato Pete to promote these ideals and they published a recipe for Dr. Carrot’s Healthy Cake in War Cookery Leaflet No. 4.

It is said America was also turning to the carrot cake for the same reasons during this time and it started growing in popularity. This cake didn’t have the modern day cream cheese icing yet though. In the early 1800s, Philadelphia Cream Cheese published their cream cheese frosting recipe on their packaging. By the 1960s, someone decided to take this recipe and apply it to the American style carrot cake. Rumor has it that the Southern bakers preferred it over buttercream because buttercream will melt in the hotter summer months and this might have led to the pairing with carrot cake.

Now we have carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. What about the raisins and walnuts though? It’s really not until the 20th century that either really appears. Some newspapers imply that walnuts came first, though it should be noted that fruit cakes and adding raisins became really common in various cakes, not just carrot cake. Author and culinary writer Jessica Reed shares this exact theory. It was just a natural progression that got the raisins added. Others suggest that which one is used, depends on what is in season and on hand at the time.

I do like to try and highlight other variants, and in this case we have a couple international ones to look at! Germany has Leipzig carrot cake which is a lighter version with a chocolate glaze. Brazil has a similar version called Bolo de cenoura. The Swiss are still going with carrot cakes and have their Rüeblitorte which uses ground almonds, a glacé icing with kirsch and lemon juice and marzipan carrots often.

Carrot cake may pop up in various places but really went from a root vegetable to a pudding, to a pie esque pudding, to a cake. A good replacement for sweetener, carrots have gotten themselves moved from pure vegetable to dessert. While you may need to ask your friends if they prefer raisins or walnuts or both, the cake seems to delight people of all ages, in many countries in the world. This has been This Food in History, I’m Sofia, thank you for watching, please like and subscribe for more!