CARROT PIE

I thought I'd said all that I had to say about carrot-based desserts in my post about 'invalid food' (carrot pudding) - but I hadn't. Not until I've shared this wonderful recipe that everybody knows and everybody loves as 'carrot cake' but which I've just identified as 'carrot pie' in the work of a Greek from Constantinople. Actually, two work by two different Greeks. But first things first.

According to Wikipedia, carrot cake is possibly the descendant of a late 16th century carrot pudding that was made by stuffing carrots with meat or vice versa but I doubt it. Another theory, by professional food historians, is that British or U.S. carrot cake evolved from a carrot-based dessert of the Regency era that was published in L'Art du cuisinier (1814) by Antoine Beauviliers, private chef of 'Monsieur', i.e. the French king's brother,  the Count of Provence and future king Louis XVIII. Though I'm not a food historian myself, I doubt there is a connection because the Gâteau de Carottes described in the second volume, pp. 127-128 of this interesting work is an extravagant version of carrot pudding and nothing like the carrot cake we know. Also, I'm not sure the British would have developed anything out of something a Frenchman created, not during the Napoleonic wars and probably not even long after them. Still, I have not found a trace of the carrot cake in any of the historic cookbooks that I usually browse in English and French and I had given up looking for clues until I came across 'carrot pie' (in Turkish: 'havuç pite') in a cookbook by Elika Pavlidou that was almost exactly the 'carrot cake' from a booklet by Vefa Alexiadou - both Greek from Constantinople. E. Pavlidou has generally kept the original names of the dishes but V. Alexiadou has not and because she occasionally features recipes of U.S. origin, I used to believe that all carrot cakes were American. Obviously, I hadn't taken a closer look at the work of E. Pavlidou.

 

A 1945 poster by U.S. Agriculture Department, War Food Administration

 

From what it seems, carrot-based desserts were re-introduced to British consumers during World War II because of the rationing. However, I wouldn't be sure that carrot cake (or carrot pie, as per E. Pavlidou) was not featured in Ottoman Turkish cuisine, which also used vegetables in both sweet and savory dishes. Ottoman Turkish was the cuisine of the royalty and the nobility and contemporary to (British) Early Modern cuisine that featured the 1591 carrot pudding - supposedly the ancestor of British carrot cakes. It was also much older than French cuisine just before Napoleon's defeat, where Gâteau de Carottes as per A. Beauviliers and similar puddings with cream, sugar, eggs and orange blossoms turned-into-praline (!) must have ruled. Whenever the recipe for 'carrot pie' was developed, it surely has a few traits in common with gingerbread and with English fruit cakes. So perhaps it has found its way into the Orient from Europe at some later date, after all.

There is also Rueblitorte, a Swiss festive cake based on carrots but I don't think carrot cake (or pie, for that matter) has anything to do with this, either. 

CARROT PIE

To deserve the name of carrot pie, your mixture has to be baked in other than a Bundt cake pan - a detail I found out after I'd baked mine (when I came across the recipe by E. Pavlidou). The following version is slightly adapted from both Greek/Turkish recipes, in that I used less sugar, more eggs, I ground the walnuts and slightly changed the mixture of dried fruit. British and U.S. carrot cakes are not baked in a Bundt cake pan either but they are usually glazed and this one is not. They are also made with butter or vegetable oil - but if you do have a cup of extra-virgin olive oil available, I suggest you give my/our version a try because the combination of carrots with olive oil results in a wonderfully moist texture.

 

I n g r e d i e n t s

3 cups plain flour

1tbsp baking powder

1tsp baking soda

1tsp cinnamon

1/4tsp cloves

3/4 cup ground walnuts

3 cups grated carrot

1 cup extra-virgin olive oil

5 large eggs

1 1/4 cups caster sugar

1/2 cup sultana raisins

1/2 cup currants

 

M e t h o d

Combine the flour, baking powder and soda, spices and walnuts. Beat the carrots, olive oil, eggs, and sugar - then mix into the dry ingredients. Stir in the dried fruit and pour into a medium-sized baking dish (or a Bundt cake pan). Bake in a pre-heated oven, at 180oC, for about 1 hour - or until a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean. Serve dusted with confectioner's sugar, if liked.

 

N o t e s

a) Increase the sugar to 1 1/2 cups, double the cinnamon, omit the cloves, replace the currants with chopped prunes - and you have the original carrot cake (or pie) by V. Alexiadou & E. Pavlidou. OR b) Replace the olive oil with butter and glaze the cake with a mixture of water, confectioner's sugar and lemon juice (or with added cream cheese) - and you have the classic British/U.S. carrot cake.