I love carrot cake, personally. Although I can understand why people dislike it. The too-sweet frosting (not to mention that some people have issues with white gloopy food substances). The fact that it is cake with shredded carrots inside. The way that it often harbors chopped walnuts, which many people dislike.
But carrot cake also lets you pretend to be making a healthy choice, when really you are just chowing down on cake.
Let's not even start talking about those Little Nemo's snack cakes. How delicious are those things, seriously? If you are lucky, they are not warm enough to be sweaty. Either way, you are contractually obligated to lick the frosting off the inside of the plastic wrap. You kind of have to, frankly.
Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, Slate claims to have perfected the art of the carrot cake, and it involves - drum roll please - shredded coconut.
On the face of it, sure, I can see this. Shredded coconut would help lighten up the batter, and bring a little bit of nutty flavor, without having to include the dreaded walnuts.
But personally, I have Some Issues with shredded coconut. Not to put too fine a point on it, but it is like eating fingernail clippings. (I feel the same way about the dried onion bits in onion soup mixes.)
This is all well and good, but I was under the impression that carrot cake was not the kind of thing that anyone makes themselves by hand. Like sushi, or baked Alaska. It is instead a substance which you purchase pre-made, often in the form of a giant sheet cake from Costco.
(Speaking of those giant Costco sheet carrot cakes, I find it both adorable and strange that the frosting is decorated with piped icing carrots. You don't often decorate a food with a representation of what's in it. I suspect they may be trying to warn people who wouldn't otherwise recognize carrot cake on sight.
I also feel that they are enforcing arbitrary rules about the size of each slice, thanks to their carrot placement. CAKE NAZIS.)
Image courtesy Flickr/paintmedioxazine
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