Carrot Bread

It’s true, we have a lot of carrots in the Frog & PenguINN garden. While they are not the prettiest veggies, they are still usable  and great for trying out new recipes. Last week I tried my first-ever carrot soup recipe which received rave reviews from Grenville, the resident F&P taste-tester.
Today I tried a couple new (to me) carrot recipes: muffins, which did not rate so highly and bread which Grenville declared “a keeper.”
As with MOST recipes,there are many carrot bread variations both in cookbooks we own and online. I confess to borrowing from other sources when  “experimenting" with a new recipe – this one was no exception.
A couple of variations I did not try include adding applesauce or orange juice. Feel free to experiment with your own variations.
Carrot Bread

• 3/4 C white sugar (see Note)
• 1/4 C packed brown sugar
• 3/4 C vegetable oil
• 1-1/2 C flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp cloves
• 1/2 tsp ginger
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 C grated raw carrots
• 1/2 C chopped pecans or walnuts
• 3/4 C golden raisins (optional)

Note: You can use 1 cup of white sugar and eliminate the brown sugar. The optional raisins were not included, but will be next time.

1. Preheat oven to 350°F; grease and flour a 9 x 5-inch loaf pan.
2. In a large bowl, mix together the sugars and vegetable oil.
3. Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, spices, and salt and add to egg mixture.
4. Beat the eggs and vanilla; gradually add to the flour mixture.
5. Add carrots, pecans, and vanilla until well combined. Pour batter into prepared pan.

Bake 1 hour or until the bread tests done – dry when a cake tester is inserted. Cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn onto wire rack to cool completely.
The recipe was doubled to make 2 breads – did I mention we have LOTS of carrots?
Here’s some of the carrot muffins made using Splenda®  instead of sugar and also some orange juice. Maybe that was part of the problem; these were much heavier than the bread. Good, but a bit too moist.
NO Splenda® or orange juice were used in the bread recipe.