OK, this is my first (and potentially only) recipe post — I’m not much of an innovator in the kitchen, but anyway…
Every year for Thanksgiving I make my version of a family recipe for “Carrot Ring”
Carrot ring is pretty much a quick bread, like zucchini bread made in the top of a bundt cake pan (hence the “ring”.) It’s sweet and a great compliment to the other foods on the Thanksgiving menu.
Here are the ingredients:
- 2 3/4 cups all purpose flour (I use unbleached organic)
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 1/2 cup raisins
- 3 cups grated carrots (I like the stubby ones from the bulk section, they are the juiciest!)
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 egg
- 1/2 avocado
- 1 tbsp coconut oil (approx)
- 3 tbsp water
- cinnamon (I don’t measure)
Most of the time, I’ll make 2 carrot rings in succession — mostly because it makes sure that the avocado doesn’t go to waste also so that I can better guesstimate how many carrots to buy!
I use the food processor to make this…
- Fitted with the grater attachment, grate all the carrots.
- Place 3 cups (packed, but not too tight) carrots into a bowl. Place the rest of the carrots aside for the second carrot ring.
- Place the steel blade attachment into the Cuisinart.
- Scoop 1/2 avocado into a 1/2 cup measure and pack down. Fill the rest of the measuring cup with coconut oil. (Sometimes I have just over 1/2 cup, depending on the size of the avocado)
- Place all ingredients into Cuisinart and turn on.
- Let it run until mixture is well combined.
- Spray bundt pan with cooking spray.
- Scoop mixture into pan.
- Moisten fingers with water and press the mixture into pan and flatten the bottom.
- Sprinkle top (which will be the bottom) with cinnamon and sugar (I use the cinnamon & sugar spice grinder from Trader Joe’s)
- Cook at 350 for 45 minutes
The biggest modification from the “original” recipe is that I removed the Crisco (solid vegetable shortening, ick!) and replaced it with the avocado and coconut oil.
The modification came from a conference I went to a few years ago… I listened to a nutritionist talk about good fat substitutions and she indicated that avocado was a great substitute for shortening — although it doesn’t work well in recipes that cannot mask the green color. So, that’s where the aha moment came from, I knew that the orange from the carrots would mask the green avocado tinge and that it was a great place to try this substitution.
I hadn’t wanted to make the carrot ring once I learned what Crisco was all about and came home from the conference and announced to Sam that I was going to try it. He was skeptical until he tasted it — no difference in his mind.
In those first few carrot rings, I used canola oil to bring the full fat quotient to 1/2 cup. It’s only been the past few years, where I regularly have coconut oil in the house that I’ve made the additional change.
Check out the results: