Chris Makes Carrot Cake

Well, it's a little bit like

the Harry Potter thing, right?

How many of us don't wanna wake up one day

and be told you're a wizard, you have special powers

'cause each one of us would be like, I knew it.

I knew it the whole time!

[upbeat music]

Well, what's cool about this one

is like, yes, it's a gluten-free carrot cake

but we kind of purpose built it

as a gluten free recipe

knowing that we wanted to base it around almond flour

and then kind of re-jigged all the other ingredients

and quantities and whatever to arrive

at a cake that is a delicious carrot cake

but just happens to be gluten free.

So, first thing I'm gonna do here

is I'm gonna prepare the pans

and these parchment rounds,

this'll just help the cake release well from these tins.

I don't need that much oil.

I'm just gonna use come of the coconut oil

that I have in the rest of the, also in the recipe

just 'cause I have it.

But any neutral oil or non-stick cooking spray

would work just fine.

And I'm using it just because I have

coconut oil already in the recipe,

so you might as well just use

what you already have in there.

So if you stick, if you put a little oil down

and then put your parchment round in,

it will not budge because it'll just stick really nicely.

And I'll just hit it

with a little bit more oil on that surface.

It doesn't need to be swimming,

but just enough to coat it

because then we're gonna use some of the almond flour here

as our dust coating, which will help the cake

release really easily.

If you're using a springform cake pan

then you wouldn't really need a parchment circle

but because we wanted to do,

you know, bake these in two layers

and not have to cut kind of one large cake into two

these make it really easy.

It's gotta be rich, you know?

Like carrot cake usually has like a good amount of oil in it

and you really want it to have like

a very pronounced level of kind of richness to it

in that sense.

You know, flavor from the carrot,

like that earthy kind of sweet quality

but then you also have the spices.

You've usually got ginger, cinnamon,

in this one we've got cardamom as well.

Yeah, the almond flour doesn't quite

wanna distribute the way like regular flour does

but just like a light coating should get you there.

So this is my remaining three cups of almond flour.

To that I'm gonna put in salt, baking powder,

baking soda, ground ginger, cinnamon, and cardamom.

I'm also gonna, I'm gonna shred the carrots

on a box grater but then the key there

is that we're gonna have to squeeze out

a good bit of moisture from them.

The one thing you're really fighting with carrot

and with carrot cake is that you want to taste and see

a lot of carrot but you definitely can run into problems

if you don't control the moisture that they have.

So I'm just gonna peel these

and then shred them on a box grater.

I wanted to do this on camera because I feel like

it's important to like, you know, this is the

kind of slightly annoying stuff

but it really makes a difference.

Of course, I've made a mess here.

So I'm gonna squeeze these carrots out.

Yeah, a lot of liquid comes out of these.

You know, and there's no substitute

for getting like right in there.

I mean, you could go in with

like a paper towel around your hands too.

You don't have to go crazy,

it's just you can see much juice,

how much water wants to come out of a carrot.

So doing a couple I think handfuls, definitely helps.

I supposed I could be doing this into a bowl and drinking it

but I have to say, like carrot juice,

not really my thing.

[Interviewer] Not great?

Not my thing.

Cool, so I'm putting oil in here.

Virgin coconut oil that has been processed or refined

really so you still smell like,

really pronounced coconut.

In here, it's actually really nice

because it's not just about

using as like the fat.

We actually want some coconut in this

so we have shredded dried coconut,

unsweetened which is gonna go in there as well.

Like that, you know the sweetened stuff

that you put in like a macaroon or whatever,

I mean there's definitely a place for that,

it's just not as versatile.

Its so sweet that it's like sticky, right?

You know, where it's like it becomes chewy.

So this it's just gonna give

a little bit of texture to the cake.

It's gonna give a little bit of

extra coconut flavor.

By the end of 2019 I wanna be able to

crack an egg one-handed.

It's kind of a personal goal.

Brown sugar going in.

So the sugar and the egg,

this is gonna beat for actually quite a bit of time.

I think it's like five to seven minutes we're calling out.

It's gonna create, basically it's gonna go from being

like this thick, sludgy mass, in theory,

to being, to kind of tripling in volume,

getting nice and aerated and that is gonna kind of

form this web inside the cake batter

that when it bakes is gonna have trapped air

and it's gonna help us build structure.

Obviously the five eggs,

that's gonna add a lot of binding ability

to the cake as well as being our primary source

of liquid that's gonna work with the dry ingredients there,

other than the coconut oil.

This is gonna be a minute.

I think we might have to cut to commercial here.

Yeah, so we're ribboning just about here.

You're seeing those big waves

that are kind of holding along the sides of the bowl.

So here we have what I call kind of ribboning

where if you drizzle this mixture over itself

it's gonna form a line that slowly dissolves

in a few seconds.

That's where you wanna be with this

so it's really, I mean it's probably quadrupled in volume.

It's really gained a lot of volume there

and that's gonna be essential to the success of the cake.

So we're just gonna put our vanilla in.

All right, so I'm mixing in the dry ingredient mixture,

about a third of it.

The reason not to just dump everything in and go

is that you're just gonna form clumps

that you're then gonna have to

potentially overwork the mixture to kind of correct.

So if you work it in just a little bit at a time

it's gonna disperse nice and evenly in there

and you're gonna be able to mix it less

than if you had just kind of dumped everything

and then had to then really power through it.

This is what we're calling our wet mixture essentially,

but really it's just the carrot and the oil

that's giving moisture to this and then the egg itself.

And the oil may kind of congeal a little bit in there.

It's okay, it's gonna be just fine.

I know they make those special chutes

for dumping stuff into the sides of stand mixers.

I just, I don't know.

[Interviewer] Flour shield?

Yeah, the flour shields, thank you.

I just, I don't roll with that.

I know it's terrible but I'd rather just clean

the side of the stand mixer.

I always kind of give a couple extra stirs

by hand just to make sure I got all the stuff at the bottom.

But this is it.

This is our gluten free carrot cake batter.

Claire would probably weigh out

how much batter was going into each one

to make it exact but this ain't her show.

All right, so into a 350 oven.

Now we wait.

So the thing about carrot cake, right,

is that it tends to be a little bit on the sweet side.

We've got a number of sweet elements in there,

not least of which is the brown sugar

so, you know, the carrot itself has its own sweetness

and same thing with the raisins

so cream cheese frosting is absolutely necessary

and even though we developed this recipe

for Healthy Ish, we felt like it was imperative to use it.

The only thing we've really done to kind of update it

is the fact that it's a little bit looser

because we're not working in

quite as much sugar as you probably normally would

for most cream cheese frosting recipes.

So, the main thing that we kind of updated here

is we're adding a little bit of full-fat Greek yogurt

for a little extra tang.

So you have a little bit of like a double down

on that kind of tangy balance to the sweetness of the cake.

So I've got cream cheese and butter going in.

I'm gonna work these together

just to make sure they're totally smooth.

It really helps to start out with both of them

at room temperature to that end.

All right, so butter and cream cheese are integrated.

This is essential.

You've gotta work the powdered sugar on low speed.

Otherwise you're gonna get powder face.

So I'm just gonna make sure that's worked in completely.

Scrape down real quick, avoiding the side of the mixer.

Yogurt is going in and then vanilla.

Pinch of salt, always a pinch of salt.

Whipped a little bit of air into it

so it's just kind of, a little bit extra light and fluffy.

But we're pretty good there.

It's a little bit looser than your average frosting

but it still kind of holds it shape,

makes a nice little peak.

This is where that parchment is really nice

just to help the cake release from the tin.

Cake decorating, not my specialty.

I'm not doing that whole like crumb coat

and then final coat, all that jazz.

This is just get the frosting on there

and start eating as soon as possible.

Claire's gonna be livid,

but you know what, not Claire's show.

[Interviewer] Still time.

[laughs]

Yeah, we were just, we were joking that like,

people love Claire's videos so much

she could literally do like gourmet chef tiles bathroom

and people would be like, yeah!

It's all good, Claire, we love you.

The key is just getting like that nice, even layer,

you know in the center.

And the rest of it will kind of take care of itself.

[Interviewer] And that's it.

And we're done.

[laughs]

it's kind of like I'm tiling a cake, actually.

Yeah, like a crumb coat, you know,

basically to avoid what I just started

to get into there, where some of the cake

wants to kind of like separate

and kind of form like little crumbs, all that.

If you wanna avoid that,

just adding like a very fine layer of frosting

and then chilling the cake just to allow it to set,

AKA a crumb coat, is a great idea.

So if we had chilled this a little bit,

it would be even a little bit firmer

but as you can see, it holds together just fine.

Anna?

[Anna] Yes?

Thank you for coming down.

Pretty much.

Oh, I've missed you cake. Does April 2018.

Wow. I know.

All right.

Do you get a lot of gluten free carrot cake?

Uh uh.

It's kind of hard to find, right?

It's hard to find.

It really does feel healthy.

Mmhmm, it's not that it's not sweet.

There's like a whole serving of carrots in here.

Yeah.

I mean, it certainly like, it has sugar

and it has the cream cheese and it has all that

but holds together beautifully.

I like it when crumbs fall off of a cake

because then you can just go like that and you know.

Come in with the fingers.

That's it.

Thank you, Anna.

Thank you!

Hunzi, get in here.

Hunzi was like in here at 9:15 this morning

like I hear somebody's making cake today.

I've hear a lot of good things

about this cake specifically.

[Chris] Yeah, it's a good one.

[Matt] Yeah, it's great.

All right, I think that wraps it up, right?

Cool, can I get you guys lunch?

A piece of cake, anything?

All right.

[Interviewer] You think if you decorate it

with a spatula will make it taste better?

Oh, for sure.

We've got like all these No Kid Hungry decorated spatulas.

This one's by Duff Goldman.

Sorry, don't know who you are, Duff.

Probably would be, uh--

[Interviewer] He's the Ace of Cakes.

Is he?

Who is Ace of Cakes?

[Interviewer] Like on TLC or something.

Sorry, Duff.

[Interviewer] Duff Goldman.

I'll check you out.

Oh, Duff.

I feel like I've gotten like a camo cake mix

from Duff at some point.

[Interviewer] Camo?

Like, it was like camouflage.

Do you know what I'm talking about?

So it had like dye, like you made camouflage cake.

Yeah, Duff.

Oh, Duff I know all about you.

[laughs]