Purple Carrots, Camille and a case of the Why Nots.
I was suffering from a case of the Why Nots the other day, standing in front of the crates of vegetables at Sainsburys. In one hand was a bunch of perfectly ordinary orange carrots, but from the corner of my eye I had spied a container of purple carrots. And yes, why not indeed. I’ve made this carrot and ginger cake so many times that I can almost taste the crumbs in my mouth, even while the ingredients are still being weighed up into a bowl. It’s nice to add a little something different to the mix every now and again, just to see what kind of difference it makes. Diced candied yellow peach is as nice as candied ginger, for example.
The purple carrots are quite sweet and attractive in their raw form, but the big question is, would it lend a purplish hue to the resulting cake? As it happens, the answer is not really; the cake doesn’t turn out as vibrantly purple or as exotic-looking as purple rice and furthermore, when stirred in the bowl, the mixture morphs into an alarming shade of grey. The baked cake is however devilishly dark, like a Rhett Butler of the cake world with it’s slick of frosting, and welcomingly damp, as Nigella might describe it.
What other Why Nots can this cake handle? A substitution of grated beetroot or apple for carrot? Why not omit the cream cheese frosting, to ease the calorific burden. Why not bake to the rhythm of Camille. Why not make a cake at least once a month, to gladden the hearts of friends.
Tags: cake, carrot, N. Ireland 2006
jenjen said,
October 8, 2006 @ 9:34 pm
Very interesting, I have never encountered purple carrots before. Thanks for sharing : )
Y said,
October 9, 2006 @ 8:31 pm
Apparently, that’s the colour carrots originally were! I quite like the idea of black, white and rainbow carrots too.
http://archives.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/europe/05/16/carrots.purple/index.html
warr said,
October 14, 2006 @ 12:38 pm
when i was in japan i came across an import shop that had (real) purple potato chips. apparently, they were from Peru. they also had bright red, yellow and orange ones. you could buy individual bags, or they had the variety pack with … a um… variety of colors. quite tasty!