50 Women Game Changers in Food - #15 Julee Rosso and Sheila Lukins - Carrot Cake

From the kitchen of One Perfect Bite...In 1977, Sheila Lukins and Julee Rosso open a Gourmet food shop on the Upper West Side of New York City. They called the store the Silver Palate and from that vantage point they began an effort that changed the way middle-class America eats. The pair wrote three hugely successful books and introduced this country's cooks to an easy, but unconventional, new way to cook and entertain in their homes. The partnership was dissolved in the 90's, but while it was intact, Julee Rosso functioned as its business manager and Sheila Lukins, who is now dead, handled the technical aspects of the venture. The pair managed to demystify gourmet cooking and brought scores of young people to the kitchen with their fresh approach to food preparation and the way they marketed new foods that were just coming on the scene. It would be fair to say they taught a generation of young Americans how to cook and eat in ways quite different from their parents. The pair held a prominent place in the food world for at least a decade. They efforts garnered them position #15 on the Gourmet Live list of 50 Women Game Changers in food.

I've chosen their famous and much heralded carrot cake, which uses a cooked carrot puree rather than grated carrots , as today's featured recipe. It is delicious, but it makes a huge and caloric cake. I'd like to suggest cutting ingredients by 1/3 and baking the cake in a 13 x 9 x 2-inch pan. Just a suggestion mind you. Here's the recipe as it appeared in the original Silver Palate Cookbook.


Carrot Cake...from the kitchen of One Perfect Bite courtesy of Sheila Lukins and Julee Rosso

Ingredients:
Cake
3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
3 cups sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon baking soda
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1-1/2 cups corn oil
4 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1-1/2 cups shelled walnuts, chopped
1-1/2 cups shredded sweetened coconut
1-1/3 cups puréed cooked carrots
3/4 cup drained crushed pineapple
Cream Cheese Frosting
8 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
3 cups confectioners’ sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Juice of 1/2 lemon (optional)

Directions:
To Make the Cake:
1) Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C). Grease two 9-inch springform pans.
2) Sift dry ingredients into a bowl. Add oil, eggs, and vanilla. Beat well. Fold in walnuts, coconut, carrots, and pineapple.
3) Pour batter into prepared pans. Set on center rack of oven and bake until the edges have pulled away from sides and a cake tester inserted in center comes out clean, about 50 minutes.
4) Cool on a cake rack for 3 hours. Fill and frost cake with the Cream Cheese Frosting. Yield 12 servings.
To Make Frosting:
1) Cream together cream cheese and butter in a mixing bowl.
2) Slowly sift in confectioners’ sugar and continue beating until fully incorporated. Mixture should be free of lumps.
3) Stir in vanilla, and lemon juice if desired.

The following bloggers are also featuring the recipes of Julee Rosso and Sheila Lukins. I hope you'll visit all of them. They are all great cooks who have wonderful blogs.

Val - More Than Burnt Toast
Joanne - Eats Well With Others
Taryn - Have Kitchen Will Feed
Susan - The Spice Garden
Claudia - A Seasonal Cook in Turkey
Heather - girlichef
Miranda - Mangoes and Chutney
Jeanette - Healthy Living
April - Abby Sweets
Katie - Making Michael Pollan Proud
Mary - One Perfect Bite
Kathleen -Bake Away with Me
Viola - The Life is Good Kitchen
Sue - The View from Great Island
Barbara - Movable Feasts
Kathleen - Gonna Want Seconds
Amy - Beloved Green
Jeanette - Healthy Living
Linda - Ciao Chow Linda
Linda A - There and Back Again
Martha - Lines from Linderhof


Next week we will highlight the food and recipes of Maida Heatter. It will be really interesting to see what everyone comes up with. If you'd like to join us please email me for additional information no later than Saturday, September 17th.