50 CARROT CAKES

     Judith Jones-Ambrosini

jonesmagee@optonline.net

From Truths, Travels & Fiction story collection

50 CARROT CAKES

It was rich and fabulously delicious.  It was mysterious. It was the dessert my friend brought to a dinner party at my tiny Greenwich Village apartment in 1975.  At that time cheese cake was all the rage. But THIS was a carrot cake. These words had not yet whisked their way into a baker’s lexicon. I asked my dear friend what was in this so called ‘carrot cake” She replied …

Oh, carrots and nuts and raisins.

After savoring two generous slices of this revolutionary cake, I knew I must have the recipe. But my fiend hesitated.

Oh, it takes forever to make, all day in fact.  After buying the ingredients, preparing each one of them separately, mixing them all together, you’ll be exhausted.  And, that’s not all!  You’ll then spend endless time smoothing on the frosting like an artist would paint with a brush.  It is not a fun project to commit to … she offered. 

So what! I thought. I wanted the recipe. With some hesitation she acquiesced and offered it.

My first attempt followed the recipe exactly. It came out perfect! Next time I started tinkering with the original recipe. A tweak here, a substitute there, until I came up with my own version, Judith’s Carrot Cake.  You might think this pointless, making a fuss over a cake. But there was something special about this cake. Perhaps it was combining fruits, vegetables, nuts and grains that made it so interesting, so pleasing to the palate. And perhaps it was the timing that made it so special. I was introduced to the carrot cake just as my partner Sheran and I had broken up our 5-year catering business, Natural Celebrations. I was in the market for a new venture. As partners, Sheran did the cooking and I did the baking. Our partnership balanced nicely, but time had come for us to move on without regrets.

I started a baking business out of my New York City 3’ x 10’Lilliputian galley kitchen.  The narrow room was equipped with one 26” stove and two portable convection ovens. This is where I baked cakes for Natural Celebrations. I made my variation of the Maida Heatter Queen Mother’s cake. The “” Queen” was a decadent flourless dark chocolate and toasted almond torte. The other dessert was a fabulous blueberry yogurt cake which was always mistaken for cheesecake due to its rich and creamy consistency.

I added the carrot cake to my baking repertoire. I sold the cakes to local cafes and restaurants, and New York City caterers. My favorite customer though, was a tiny health food store in Greenwich Village owned by Hasheem. He was a saffron garbed yogi who had left his former life working in his father’s hardware store in Flatbush, Brooklyn. One of the reasons I liked Hasheem (formerly Nathan Finkleberg) was that he always had good ideas and suggestions for my carrot cake. He told about the sweetest, organic carrots grown in nitrogen rich soil in Schoharie, New York. The 200-mile road trip north was worth the effort if only for the sweet aroma of a 50-lb. sack of carrots sitting in the back seat of our candy apple red Chevy. He also guided me to where I could buy organic whole wheat pastry flour at wholesale. All this, and I only sold him one cake a week! I baked the cake in a heavy Bundt pan and sliced it into 16 pieces, wrapped them in clear wrap and put the slices back together into a perfect circle. It made for an eye-catching presentation. Plus, it was easy for customers to grab a slice. I charged Hasheem $15 for the cake and he sold slices for $3.

Things went along like this until the weekly order jumped from one cake to three.  Wow! I was happy that the carrot cake was bringing in new business. All good. Then Hasheem called to say that one customer had been buying the extra cakes and he wanted to place a large order. Terrific!

When I went to meet this customer, Hasheem told me he was waiting next door at Mary Milk’s Pet Store. Sounded a little odd, but so what. I found out that Mary Milk acquired her nickname because she regularly sipped cups of milk laced with Amaretto di Saronno while she tended the shore. It wasn’t exactly a typical pet store with tropical fish playfully swimming in big tanks, cute little kittens purring and cuddly puppies barking.  Instead, there was a dusty glass counter on one side with a few dog toys on display and packets of gold fish food under the counter. Along one wall were shelves that held three or four bags of dog and cat food. And that was it. Some pet store! Not only that. I got the feeling that maybe other things were going on behind the thread-worn blue curtain at the back of the store. I had heard rumors that Mary Milk’s store was a drop off spot for neighborhood numbers’ runners. I also heard that the head of the local mafia crime family kept an apartment there. This Greenwich Village neighborhood had many sides to it. It wasn’t all artists, poets and folk singers. There was also an underbelly society some called the Mafia.  Besides doing whatever their business was, they kept the neighborhood safe. I was not “neighborhood.” This meant I was not born and raised there, nor was I Italian, I was on the outskirts of this culture.  All I really knew was that for the years I lived in that neighborhood, I always felt safe.

Now I was just happy that someone liked this cake enough to want to order more. Maybe he wanted five cakes. Who could say? I was a little taken back to meet the man in the pet store who didn’t look like the typical health food customer. I would describe him as having a strong aura, charming yet secretive.  He was tall and thin with longish dark hair combed back in a kind of Elvis Presley style. His face was structured, a strong chin and piercing dark eyes. The eyes moved quickly. I got the sense that those eyes had seen things that most eyes had not.  He was dressed in a long hooded navy-blue velveteen bathrobe. Protruding from the bottom of the robe were shiny black shoes and white cotton socks that covered rather large feet. He was happy to see me and greeted me with a big smile.

She’s here … she’s the one who makes the cakes! 

And strangely enough I was happy to meet him. We liked each other right away.

In a few words he let me know that he knew more about me than I had imagined. He said my husband was good guy, a neighborhood guy and he asked how my son was doing in St. Anthony’s school. As it happened one of the neighbors in my apartment building was his close associate, Mr. Frankie, aka Frankie California.  Frankie had a certain quirkiness about him. He always dressed in white leisure suits no matter the season. When his next-door neighbor Suzanne, an opera coach, parked her bicycle outside his door, he simply threw it out the hallway window. More Frankie stories another time. 

So here you have it, my introduction for a cake order. Funny thing was that all the while we spoke, he never mentioned his name and something in my gut told me not to ask.

We arrived at the subject of the carrot cakes. He said he would like to give some as Christmas presents. Could I put them in boxes?  Of course. I asked if he wanted them delivered to Hasheem’s store or someplace else. Bring them right here is good, he said. How many cakes would you like? 

How about 50? 

OK, I said without missing a beat.

50 Carrot Cakes! 50 Carrot Cakes! Was he out of his mind! And was I out of my mind for the nonchalant OK answer I gave, as though making 50 carrot cakes was something I did every other damn day.

Walking home I began calculating … I could make 2 batches of 4 cakes a day giving me 8 cakes which meant it would take me 6 days. I could bake the 2 remaining cakes on the last day. I calculated how many pounds of carrots, pecans, raisins, flour and dozens of eggs I would need. I figured out butter and cream cheese for the frosting. I stopped in Caffe Dante for a coffee so I could jot all these calculations down while I was still in relative possession of my mind. On paper it seemed like a breeze but in real time it would soon become a “fughazi.” 

Next morning, I made a deal with Sandi, my building Super (superintendent) to store 50 pounds of carrots and the cakes in the 5 empty abandoned, but working, refrigerators in the basement storeroom. Then I took the uptown bus to Bridge Kitchenware, the Mecca for cooks and bakers. I bought bundt pans, whisks, spatulas and cooling racks. The one thing I didn’t consider was where to lay out 50 carrot cakes in my small apartment. They needed someplace to cool once baked. This posed a dilemma. The answer was soon to be found in the bath department of Macys. Big clear plastic shower curtains filled the bill. The shower curtains would become tarps to cover my living room floor. This is where the cakes would cool and wait to be slathered with a rich cream cheese frosting and garnished with chopped toasted pistachio nuts.

 Next was a drive north to Schoharie to buy a 50-lb. sack of sweet carrots.

And then the baking marathon began.

By the second day it became a rhythmic dance. Chop, mix, blend, mix, bake, cool, frost, box, store and done. This performance took place daily for six days. 

When at last the cakes were safely delivered, he handed me a slightly crumpled envelop, thick with cash. In addition, he presented me with an unexpected gift, a bottle of Tattinger’s Compte di Champagne. Thank you’s were exchanged. He was happy with the cakes and I was happy to make the sale and for the project to be done with.

I went home, put my very tired feet up on the sofa, and began sipping glass after glass from the bottle of Tattinger’s, thanks to the carrot cake man, whose name I now knew as Eddie.  

That should be the end of the story but it isn’t. 

The carrot cakes were a big success and he ordered them for every holiday. It was at Thanksgiving when he asked if I made other cakes. I gave him a list of three or four of my favorites. He ordered ten cheesecakes. Being a cheesecake purist, the only cheesecake I made was a fantastically rich and creamy plain one. I leave the strawberry and pineapple cheesecakes to other bakers. However, one day I was paging through a food magazine and saw a recipe for mocha cheesecake. It sounded pretty good since I am a big fan of anything that involves coffee and chocolate.  So, I made two mocha cheesecakes on a whim, one for him and one for myself. He absolutely loved the mocha! In fact he asked if I could make five mocha cheesecakes for the following week. Again, I said …. OK. 

The only problem was that I accidentally threw the magazine with the recipe down the incinerator. This meant I had to wing it. The cakes turned out to be quite good, perhaps even better than the original recipe! How could they miss with a little dark Callebaut chocolate and Italian espresso? 

My little baking business had grown and Eddie was a big part of it. I was still baking from my small apartment kitchen but I was beginning to feel like a human carrot cake. One day he told me about a store down the block from the health food store that was going out of business. It was in the building across the street from 308, the local social club where Eddie was often seen entering. He told me to take a look at the store to see if it was a good place for baking. He said he knew the owner of the building.  I looked and saw the potential immediately. The store was occupied as a kind of Hippie Artsy store selling Batik scarves, incense, tie-dyed t-shirts and beads. The way the space was laid out it would have made an ideal kitchen for baking and storage. So, I said I was interested in the store depending on the rent. The current occupants were supposed to leave at the end of the month. End of month came and went. They decided to stay. Oh well, other opportunities would turn up if I was to continue baking.   

And then it happened.  

Two weeks later the building, the entire building, burned down. Luckily it was completely empty at the time of the fire, which smelled a little suspicious. It was almost as if the residents had been forewarned to evacuate. It was an old tenement building whose inhabitants were mainly neighborhood Italian seniors. Everyone found better apartments except for the group who rented the store. They were left in the cold, beadless in their tie-dyed caftans. My first thought was … good thing I didn’t rent that store! But the odd thing was that no one ever knew what caused the fire and it was never again mentioned.

I got to thinking about the craziness of baking 50 carrot cakes at a time, and about how much longer I would be able to use the refrigerators in my building basement. I thought about how I crowded the elevators for other residents in my building while transporting cakes. I thought about my clandestine meetings with Eddie in the back of Mary Milk’s Pet Store and wondered what could be next in this oddball friendship. 

It was about that time a surprise came my way. It was an opportunity to write a food column for an upstate New York newspaper. And you know what they say about when opportunity knocks.  

One afternoon before packing my bags I stopped by Mary Milk’s pet store to say goodbye to the person I had grown to really like and yes, admire. He was a man following his destiny for good or bad and I only knew the good side. I told him I would miss him and was happy to have been friends with him. He said if I ever needed anything I’d know where to find him.

 At home I wrapped up my Bundt pans and whisks and put them in storage. After all who knew if I would come back to Greenwich Village and bake carrot cakes again one day?    But for now, it was time to put away my knives and sharpen my pencils.

Judith’s Carrot Cake

IMPORTANT NOTES TO READ BEFORE STARTING:

 Toast nuts in 300 oven for 5-8 minutes to deepen flavor.

Soak raisins in bowl of very hot water for 10 minutes. Drain well before adding to cake. You can add a coupe T. of rum if you’d like.

1.    In standing mixer (Kitchen-aid if you have one) combine ½ cup Canola oil, ½ cup honey, 1 cup sugar. Let mixer run for 3-4 minutes until ingredients are well combined.

2.   Add 4 eggs, one at a time, mixing well.

3.   In a separate bowl combine 2 cups unbleached flour, 1 cup whole wheat flour, 2 ½ tsp. baking powder, 2 tsp. baking soda, generous pinch salt, 1 Tbs. cinnamon. Whisk ingredients together vigorously.

4.   On low speed, add 1/3 flour mix followed by ¼ cup milk. Repeat flour, milk, flour.

5.   Grate 1 lb. carrots (I use grating blade of Cuisinart) and add on lowest speed to combine.

6.   Stir in 1 ½ cups toasted chopped walnuts or pecans, then stir in 1 cup drained golden raisins.

7.   Bake in prepared Bundt pan (I spray lightly with Pam and sprinkle with breadcrumbs)

8.   Bake in 350 oven for 1 hour depending on your oven. Be sure to check after 45 minutes. Pierce cake with wooden skewer. If it comes out dry, cake is done.

9.   Let cake cool on a rack for 15 minutes before turning out of pan. Then let cool to room temp before frosting.

10.                  Frost cake with cream cheese frosting recipe below. Decorate cake with finely chopped nuts sprinkled all over cake.

Cream Cheese Frosting

Be sure to have all ingredients at room temp before making frosting. 

Cream together 1 stick butter, 8 oz. cream cheese, 1 tsp. good vanilla. Add 2 or more cups XX sugar, depending on your sweet tooth. Enjoy!

1 of 50 Carrot Cakes!