Gluten-Free Carrot Cake w/ Brown Butter Cream Cheese Frosting
Holá from Brasil!
Okay so it’s been a minute. I miss y’all. How’s it hanging?
The last few months have been a whirlwind for my partner and me. Our friends have been on standby to hear which country we plan on moving to, which changes just about every few days. Getting a visa in 2025, as two people in the food industry, is not easy! Finally, it appears we have a good plan (one I won’t divulge here–you can’t digitally knock on wood).
This is all to say: I’ve been absent from the newsletter for a little while but I’m thrilled to see that people continue subscribing and interacting with these recipes. If this is the first newsletter you’ve received since subscribing, then I wish you a warm welcome. The next few months look unpredictable, but I intend on continuing to provide you with recipes despite the limitations.
In the meantime, my partner and I are staying with his family in Cabo Frio, Brasil. We went from a descent into winter in London, to a push into summer here in Brasil. It’s hot. I’m getting a real tan for the first time since I was a child. His family has been incredibly lovely and welcoming and his mother has taught me some wonderful (gluten-free!) Brazilian baked goods that I’ll share with you soon. Speaking of which, it’s pretty easy being gluten-free here: every food package either says ‘Contém glúten’ or ‘Não contém glutén’, so you can tell if it’s safe at a glance.
Today, I made my signature carrot cake for the family. This is the first time I’ve made it gluten-free, and in addition to this change, I also am using different flour blends, baking powder, sugars, and eggs; And buttermilk doesn’t exist in Brasil so I combined UHT milk (fresh is nearly impossible to find) and lemon to approximate the acidity and tang. I also don’t have all my usual equipment, so this was a genuinely fun challenge. It was a good reminder to let loose when baking and trust my instincts. Even with substitutes and changes with technique to accommodate different equipment etc., all that matters in the end is that it tastes damn good. Lopsided or homely or a bit dark, most things still go down easy and bring joy.
Overview
First we’ll toast pecans, then grate the carrot and ginger and combine those with the buttermilk and vanilla (you can this this a few hours ahead). Then we’ll crush some pecans and finely ground the rest, then mix all the dries. Then we’ll beat the sugar and eggs until ribbon-stage, stream in the oil, then combine everything together and bake. In the meantime, we’ll brown the butter for the frosting and later we’ll beat everything together and top our cake.
You can bake this as rounds for a frosted cake or, as I did today, bake in a 9x13 or any rectangular pan for a simple cake to have with coffee.
For The Chew Crew, I’m sharing something I put on the backburner and didn’t publish before I left London: creamy, custardy coconut buns. Coincidently, these buns are very Brazilian as well, especially if you add some cheese into the mix. Brazilians eat lots of sweets with cheese which I first found strange but now I LOVE.
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Recipe
Makes one, triple layer 8-inch cake (baked in three separate pans) OR two thicker layers in two 9-inch pans OR one large rectangular cake (like in a 9x13)
Ingredients:
150g pecans, walnuts, and/or hazelnuts
450g carrots
240g buttermilk, room temp (or milk, adding 1 tbsp of lemon juice and let rest for a few hours OR mix 1/3 yogurt and 2/3 milk)
1 tbsp finely grated fresh ginger
2 tsp vanilla extract
300g gluten-free flour blend with xantham gum (or, if using one without, add 6g, a little less than 2 tsp, of xanthan gum) [see notes for homemade blend]
2.5 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp (8g) baking powder
6g salt
1 tsp (6g) baking soda
1 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground clove or allspice
4 large eggs (200g), room temp
150g caster or granulated sugar
150g dark brown sugar (I used muscovado sugar today and it worked well)
225g neutral oil
Preheat oven to 175°C (350°F) fan and toast 150g nuts until deep golden. You can turn off the oven here. Peel and grate 450g carrots into a medium bowl and combine with 240g buttermilk, 1 tbsp grated fresh ginger, and 2 tsp vanilla. You can do this a couple of hours before because the buttermilk will tenderise the carrots with time.
Put about two-thirds of the nuts in a plastic bag and lightly crush, then transfer into a small bowl. Put the rest of the nuts in the bag and mash until mealy, then transfer to medium bowl. You can do this in a food processor instead. To the bowl with the finely ground nuts, add 300g flour blend, xanthan gum if needed, 2.5 tsp cinnamon, 2 tsp baking powder, 6g salt, 1 tsp baking soda, 1 tsp ground ginger, and 1/4 tsp clove/allspice. Whisk.
Beat the 4 large eggs, 150g caster/granulated sugar and 150g dark brown sugar in a stand mixer until ribbon stage. You can use a handheld beater instead though it will take longer to get to ribbon stage. You want the egg foam to sit on top of the surface of the mix, for a couple seconds, when you lift the beater out. This means enough air is incorporated. Stream in oil very slowly, while beating, until emulsified. Switch to paddle attachment (or do this by hand with a rubber spatula) and add one-third of dry mix, then half of wet, and alternate, ending with last third dry plus the lightly ground nuts that were put aside. Scrape sides and fold.
Grease and line cake tins or a rectangular pan. If you don’t have paper as I didn’t today, grease and flour your tin. Pour in the batter and ensure it’s flat and pushed into the corners. Allow the batter to rest for about 30 minutes (gluten-free flours take some time to properly hydrate). Preheat the oven to 175°C (350°F) conventional. If your oven only has a fan setting, preheat to 160°C (325°F).
Bake, rotating after 20 min, until the center springs back and an inserted skewer comes out clean but damp, about 10-30 minutes more depending on your pan size. The cake should be fragrant and just pulling away from the sides of the pan.
Cool to room temperature, then remove from tin and frost as desired.
Brown Butter Cream Cheese Frosting:
This is not the frosting I made in Brazil but have since updated this recipe to include my new and improved frosting. The old version was always too sloppy and impossible to pipe. This pipes/spreads beautifully and is absolutely delicious. I understand the egg white powder is an additional ingredient in your kitchen, so feel free to simply leave this out and accept that it will be a bit less stable. The heating process and powdered milk will still help keep it decently stable and make it pipe-able.
340g unsalted butter
12g powdered milk
15g (1 tablespoon) water
170g cream cheese, full fat
150g caster or granulated sugar
9g (1 ½ tablespoons) dried egg white powder
2g (½ teaspoon) lemon juice
Salt, to taste
Vanilla, to taste
Brown 50-100% of the butter (depending on how ‘brown’ of a flavour you want, I like about 75%), then pour into a heatproof container and let it sit at room temp until hardened. If you didn’t brown all the butter, add the remaining butter and the hot butter will melt and combine with it. You can put this into the fridge to speed this up, but pull it back out as soon as it’s hard. It’s very important the butter is solid but room temp before continuing. Feel free to brown the butter the day before to give it time to totally harden.
If you haven’t browned butter before: use a stainless steel pot if you have one (it’s easier to see your progress this way) and melt the butter over medium heat. Continue cooking, moving constantly with a rubber spatula and scraping the bottom, until the butter becomes very quiet. This means the water has evaporated. Turn the heat down and try to see past the foam on the surface for browned bits floating in the butter. Your nose will tell you when it’s ready: it will be intensely nutty. Immediately remove from heat and scrape every last browned bit into the bowl. Some chefs push their browned butter way past this stage until the bits are black, but I find this flavour unappealing and stop once it’s just caramelised. Brown butter if doing so and allow to slightly harden in fridge. Cut into pieces.
Hydrate 12g powdered milk with 1 tbsp water by whisking and set aside.
Place 170g cream cheese and 150g sugar into the bowl of stand mixer and place over a double boiler (ie. a small pot of water brought to a boil). If your stand mixer bowl doesn’t sit into any of your pots without touching the water, then do this in a separate bowl, then transfer to the stand mixer.
Whisk the cream cheese and sugar mixture constantly while heating, until the temperature reaches 78°C (172°F), at which the sugar should be dissolved in the cream cheese.
Remove the bowl from heat, then add 9g egg white powder and the milk powder paste. Whisk on high speed with for about 5 minutes until thickened to a glue-like consistency and cooled to room temp.
Gradually add the room temp, browned butter. It is important here that the butter and cream cheese mixture are slightly warm so that the butter emulsifies into the mixture. Scrape down the sides and whisk to ensure no clumps of butter remain. Put into the fridge, along with the whisk inside the bowl for about 20-30 minutes, until cool to the touch. The frosting will not whip into a stable cream until it’s cold.
Whisk again until thick like buttercream. Add 1/2 tsp lemon juice. Add salt and vanilla to taste. Switch to the paddle and beat for a minute or two to eliminate large air bubbles. Refrigerate until ready to use and re-paddle just before piping/spreading.
You can simply spread this all over your rectangular cake or assemble your carrot cake layers into tiers and spread this frosting between and outside. I have served this with candied carrot pieces, candied ginger and pecans sprinkled around.
Storage: Unfrosted cake will keep at room temperature, in a sealed container, for about 3 days. Once frosted, keep the cake in the fridge and consume within 3 days. Frosting made ahead will keep in the fridge for 3 days.
Tip 1: Really, you can make this frosting with any cream cheese, but Philadelphia is quite low in moisture and anything else may need adjustments, such as more butter to compensate for the moisture. But even if the frosting is looser because of a different cream cheese, it will still be usable and delicious, just not as stable.
Notes for Nerds:
I use King Arthur Gluten-Free Measure For Measure Flour here. If making your own blend, I recommend:
93g superfine white rice flour
51g superfine brown rice flour
54g cornstarch
45g tapioca starch
9g potato starch
42g powdered milk
6g (a little less than 2 tsp) xanthan gum
I hope you try this cake and that you enjoy it as much as we did. Remember, there are almost always ways to change recipes to suit your own ingredients and equipment! If you ever have doubts about what is possible in your kitchen, leave a comment below and I’ll be happy to advise you.
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Next week I will share some recipes from my partner’s mother, including cassava cake.
Now here are some pics from Brazil:
