Classic Brazilian Carrot and Chocolate Cake

Every Brazilian´s favorite childhood snack - recipe by my beloved Grandma, "Dona" Maria!

I was talking about this classic Brazilian cake some time ago with an American friend of mine and meant to send her the recipe of the wonderful thing. I googled it and to my surprise, even though every carrot and chocolate cake recipe in English looked incredibly delicious, it didn´t look at all alike the cake I´ve eaten my whole life in Brazil! Most recipes in America have a chocolate batter and carrot filling structure, while in Brazil it´s the other way around! Haha!

While I do believe you should try both and wouldn´t be let down by any of them, here goes the classic Brazilian carrot and chocolate cake recipe in its most usual form - by my very Brazilian and beloved Grandma "Dona" Maria. I translated it as best as I could!

Ingredients

For the batter

-1 large carrot

-1 cup of soy oil

-150ml of milk (5 oz.)

-2 eggs

-2 cups of sugar

-3½ cups of all-purpose flour

-1 teaspoon of yeast

-Unsalted butter (to grease the cake pan)

For the chocolate sauce

-200ml of milk (6.8 oz.)

-1 can of light cream/table cream

-4 tablespoons of cocoa powder

-2 tablespoons of sugar (you can add more or less, depending on whether your cocoa powder is already sweetened or not).

Step-by-step process:

1- First, the batter! In a blender, mix together the carrot (peeled and cut in pieces), the cup of oil, the milk, the eggs, and the sugar until the mixture is a homogeneous light orange fluid.

2- Take the mixture out of the blender and put it in a food mixer. You´re then going to add in the flour, but see here: sift it slowly, adding the whole 3½ cups of flour to the mixing batter turning in the food mixer, little by little. Let it become a thicker homogeneous light orange fluid.

3- Put the mixture in a bowl and add in the 1 teaspoon of yeast, mixing it slowly with a spoon.

4- Preheat the oven at 200°C (392° F). Let it warm up for at least 15 minutes before putting the cake in.

5- Grease the entire cake pan with unsalted butter. Sprinkle the butter on the pan with flour.

6-The cake needs to be in the oven for 40 minutes. When the time is over and you turn the oven off, let the cake sit inside the closed oven for 5 more minutes. It´ll get a "golden look", as Grandma Maria says!

My grandma´s cake pan was 25 x 40cm (9.8 x 15.7 inches) and 3cm high (1.2 inches). If your cake pan is a little smaller than that, you´ll only need to use 3 cups of flour instead of 3½. It´s as simple as that!

For the chocolate sauce:

1- Simply put all the ingredients for the chocolate sauce in a cooking pot over low heat (if you don´t cook it over low heat, I don´t wanna be the one cleaning your stove after you´re done! It´ll boil all over! Speaking from experience). Stir the mixture gently with a spoon the whole time. You´ll know you´re done when the mixture gets just a little thicker, after at least 10 minutes of stirring.

The grand finale:

1- Take your beautiful golden cake out of the oven and let it cool down naturally a bit (well, if you´re like me and prefer eating it as hot as it comes out, you don´t have to wait at all!). With a fork, pierce all over the cake gently so the chocolate sauce manages to get inside. Pour the chocolate sauce all over the cake. Finish it with chocolate sprinkles if you would like to. Voilà!

TIP: To keep your cake moist, cover it with aluminium foil before putting it in the fridge.

I hope you like the recipe!! If you do try it, leave a comment here telling me how did your experience go.