When I woke up this morning, the outside temperature was several degrees below zero. So I decided to stay in and bake a cake. I chose this recipe for “harvest cake,” a layer cake based on grated vegetables – carrots, beets, and zucchini. Seeing as it’s the dead of winter, I don’t happen to have any zucchini on hand, so I ended up using extra carrots and beets to make up for it. I made only two other tiny adjustments to the recipe – I substituted melted butter for half the oil and added a teaspoon of vanilla to the batter. I also decided to forego the recommended goat cheese frosting (not a big fan of goat cheese) and opted for vanilla buttercream (my favorite) instead. Cream cheese frosting would probably go well with this cake, too.

The cake turned out moist, fruity, and slightly spicy, very similar to carrot cake, which it almost is. I look forward to trying the recipe again in summer when zucchini is available.

This cake earned the Parrot Seal of Approval.

Local Analysis

Cake

Local: butter, eggs, beets, carrots, maple syrup

Non-local: flour, baking powder and soda, cinnamon, vanilla, salt, oil, walnuts, raisins

Frosting

Local: butter, milk

Non-local: sugar, vanilla