You guys, this is important: it is fried cake. To be specific, it is carrot cake that has been cut into bars, rolled in sugar, and skillet-fried until caramelized. I ain’t looking back. Especially not since the whole she-bang is topped with milk jam, which is basically just a sort of gross name for the most delicious combination of homemade sweetened condensed milk plus a spoonful of sour cream. This cake was amazing, but it’s the method that’s the take-home. Why have I not fried cake before?!
The cake-caramelizing technique comes to us courtesy of Oxheart from last month’s issue of Bon Appetit, and was brought to life by Tim Mazurek over on Lottie + Doof. It was, in fact, his tweeted suggestion of pan-frying carrot cake in particular that brings us here today. I find it totally okay to reaffirm his kitchen genius by telling you that I first tried this with gingerbread and it just wasn’t as good as the carrot, though I may yet try again. Old-fashioned white cake is one of my favorites of all time, and I'm sure that it would be out of this world rolled and fried and maybe topped with some chocolate bourbon sauce: endless delicious possibilities!
Can we also just take some personal time to love this song? It is so good, and I hope that you enjoy it too. The perfect cake-eating soundtrack, right? Right.
Caramelized Carrot Cake with Milk Jam Sour Cream
Inspired by Bon Appetit and Lottie + Doof
Carrot Cake
Adapted from Smitten Kitchen
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon fine-grain sea salt
2 heaping teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 heaping teaspoon ground ginger
2 cups granulated sugar
1 1/4 cups canola oil
4 large eggs (I used duck eggs! It worked.)
3 cups grated, peeled carrots
Granulated sugar for frying
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Butter the bottom of a 13”x9”x2” pan, line it with waxed paper or parchment, and butter and flour that in turn.
2. Whisk flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger in medium bowl. Whisk sugar and oil in large bowl until well blended. Whisk in eggs one at a time. Add flour mixture and stir until blended. Stir in carrots. Pour batter into cake pan and smooth the top. Bake for 30 to minutes, or until a tester inserted into the center comes out clean.
3. Let cool in pans for five minutes or so, then transfer cakes to a cooling rack. Let cool completely, then wrap in two layers of plastic wrap and pop it into the freezer for at least two. Wrap in a third layer of plastic if planning to keep cake in freezer for more than a week or two.
4. When ready to fry, take cake out of freezer, remove plastic, and use a serrated knife trim cake so that it has clean edges. Cut cake in half lengthwise, then cut each half into bars that are about 1.25 inches wide.
5. Heat a nonstick skillet over medium-high heat for a few minutes (I found that my pan had to be pretty hot to achieve the caramelizing that I was looking for). Meanwhile, spread some sugar onto a plate, and roll the four long sides of each bar in the sugar. Working in batches, caramelize the cake in skillet, turning with tongs about every 30 seconds to one minute to brown evenly. Serve warm, with milk jam sour cream, salted caramel, whipped cream, or any sort of decadent topping of your choosing.
Milk Jam Sour Cream
Adapted from Oxheart, via Bon Appetit
2 cups whole milk
1 cup granulated sugar
About 1 tablespoon sour cream per serving
1. Mix milk and sugar into a large heavy-bottomed saucepan, and bring to a boil over medium heat; stir until sugar is dissolved. Turn heat to low and simmer for about an hour (the recipe suggests 40 minutes, but mine took slightly longer than one hour), until mixture is thickened and reduced to about one cup. Remove from heat, and cool to thicken.
2. When ready to serve, mix one tablespoon of sour cream with about one tablespoon of milk jam, or to whatever your desired sweetness. Top cake! Extra milk jam can be used to sweeten tea, or as a totally decadent topping to waffles, cobbler, or some such thing.
