carrot pulp – Welcome to my backyard city homestead

Most of the time, instead of shredding carrots I use the left over pulp from making fresh carrot juice. Shredded carrots / carrot pulp, they’re interchangeable in this recipe. Sometimes I freeze the extra carrot pulp in 3 cup amounts – just for this recipe.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Prepare a bundt pan (or a 9x 13 cake pan, or two 8×8 baking pans) by buttering or oiling it. Wipe lightly with paper towel to remove any clumps of butter or puddles of oil. Lightly dust with flour, shaking out the excess. Set aside.
*hint: my preferred pan is a large bundt pan. I like the look of the cake when I serve it.

Ingredients:

1 cup vegetable oil of your own choice
5 large eggs
1+1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup liquid: milk or kefir or juice
2 cups unbleached flour (can substitute 1 cup whole wheat flour if desired)
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp each nutmeg, allspice, ginger (if you don’t have one of these spices, don’t worry about it)
3 cups grated carrots (or carrot pulp left over from juicing)
*optional: toasted nuts like almonds, walnuts and pecans chopped. Pumpkin seeds or raisins too.

In large mixing bowl, sift together: flour, baking soda and powder, with all spices. Set aside.
I like to stir the carrots into the dry ingredients till thoroughly incorporated, but you can also fold in at the end if you prefer.
In a separate bowl, beat the 5 eggs, add sugar and continue to beat till thoroughly combined. Add the 1/2 cup of liquid, and mix in to incorporate well.
When both bowls are prepared, pour the liquids into the dry ingredients and gently fold together till all are equally moistened. If you feel you need a little more moisture, go ahead and add a little more.
Pour batter into prepared baking pans (my favourite is a large bundt pan). If the pan is more than 2/3 full of batter, remove a few tablespoons of it to a smaller (prepared) pan and bake separately. This will prevent it from rising too much and overflowing your bundt pan.
Set in the centre of your heated oven and set the timer for 35 minutes. Start checking every five minutes after then. Depending on the size of pan you’re using, you can expect it to take between 45-60 minutes. The bundt pan takes the longest because it’s deeper. Don’t undercook.
Test by lightly tapping with your finger. If the cake bounces back, test further with a toothpick. When it comes out clean, remove the cake from oven and set aside to cool about half an hour.
Lightly loosen with spatula then turn upside down onto serving plate. Allow to finish cooling before fully removing. *I leave the square or rectangle cakes in their pans to serve, only removing the cake in the bundt pan.

Icing:
1/3 cup butter – room temperature
1/2 cup cream cheese – room temperature
1 cup icing sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 T cream or milk
*optional: toasted nuts like almonds, walnuts and pecans chopped. Pumpkin seeds too.

In medium bowl, beat butter and cream cheese on medium-high speed till completely smooth. (1 or 2 minutes)
Gradually add icing sugar, then vanilla and cream – beating till fluffy.
Lightly pour over top of the cake and smooth out with spatula. I like a drizzled look on the bundt cake. If you’d like it iced completely, double the recipe.
Sprinkle chopped nuts over top of the icing.

Enjoy

Cindy Suelzle

– recipe made with Carrot Pulp from juicing carrots –
This recipe makes 18 muffins, but plan to double it so you can share with neighbours.

in these muffins I added some dehydrated blueberries for ‘raisins’

Preheat oven to 350F.
Sift together dry ingredients and set aside:
2 cups whole wheat flour OR half unbleached flour
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt

beat 3 eggs, add 1 cup milk and 1/2 cup oil (your choice)
set aside
* 1 cup raisins or chopped walnuts or combination (optional)

add to flour mixture:
2 cups grated carrots OR carrot pulp OR refreshed dehydrated carrots
gently fold carrots into flour mixture till evenly coated
If you’re adding raisins or nuts, right now would be a good time. Fold in.
* I generally add at least another cup of carrot pulp. If I add two additional cups, I add another egg and another tablespoon of oil as well.

Pour wet ingredients into flour-carrot mixture and gently fold in to moisten completely. If the batter is too stiff and you feel the need to add a little more milk, go ahead. Don’t over stir.

Line muffin tins with paper liners – makes approximately 18 muffins.
*tip: I lightly coat the muffin tin with oil and use the liners as well, as it makes it easier to peel off the liners later.

Bake 20-22 minutes at 350F. Test by gently touching the top of the muffin – when it bounces back to your finger, its done.
I let the muffins sit on the top of the stove for about 5 minutes to cool slightly before removing them to place onto rack to finish cooling.

Enjoy!

Warmly,
Cindy

what’s the point?

In the beginning, pre-internet days, when I wanted to learn a new skill, I did it the old fashioned way. I asked.

Problem was, it was kinda hard sometimes to find people who knew how to do what I wanted to learn. Sometimes I had to figure things out on my own, using an old book with very few pictures and a whole lot of trial and error. It took time—and sometimes it was downright painful. Sure would have been simpler if I could have just ‘seen it done’, and what it was supposed to look like in the end. You know …. Something like a live YouTube video. Wouldn’t that have blown our minds way back in the day? Wow. It’s so much easier to learn how to do things now.

You can bet that whenever I found someone willing to share, I took full advantage. And if there were classes offered in my area, I signed up.

We read a lot and experimented a lot, and made a lotta mistakes, and learned a lot, and we’re still learning. I am including Dan in this, as most of what I did, we did together. We sure don’t regard ourselves as experts at anything we do. Just like you – we’re still trying to do the best we know how. And the learning never stops. In some areas, we just might be a little further along the road is all.

I have a motto that I live by. It is a quote from Maya Angelou stencilled in big black letters in my kitchen. “Do the best you can until you know better. Then, when you know better, DO better.”

So simple. So straightforward. And so absolutely profound. Just DO better.

Don’t beat yourself up over what you didn’t know before. Don’t live in a life of regrets. You did the best you knew how, but now you know better, and you can move forward.

I love the principle taught in the quote.

The purpose of this blog is to make your journey a little easier than mine was – by offering some shortcuts, hands-on instruction, and maybe even a few helpful suggestions.

Anyone who wants to, can achieve a greater level of self-sufficiency, and everything I share can be (and should be) adapted to fit your own home and situation. There is no single ‘right’ way, and no completely wrong way. Just ideas that might work for you and are worth trying.

Whether you live in an apartment with a balcony, a townhouse with a patio, a home with a yard, or a farm on the prairie – you can make it better than it is, and become more self-sufficient right where you are.

Here, we will explore a little of this and that – from the kitchen to the laundry room to the garden, to the thoughts and feelings that are intertwined with this kind of lifestyle, . . . . . and probably several places in between. We’ll go where the wind blows I guess. This is a new experience for me too. I’m looking forward to it.

I’d love it if you’d take a moment to comment when you read a post. Let me know what you think. Share your thoughts, your tips and your own way of “doing it better”. We can learn from each other.

– Cindy

Tag: carrot pulp

Carrot Cake

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