Recipe: Queen Anne’s Cake

Most carrot cakes have vegetable oil, nuts, and often shredded coconut, which makes for a very moist and sometimes dense cake.  This one is different.  I have  adapted it from Camille Glenn’s Heritage of Southern Cooking (if you want to purchase it, get the original version and not the later coffee table one). Since the Resident Wine Maniac is Southern and I am not, I have used this book many times to recreate dishes he loved growing up. Camille called her carrot cake Queen Anne’s Cake, after Queen Anne’s Lace, which is a valid carrot relative (no link to the unfortunate English Queen). It is light in flavor and texture – and can be made ahead.  She apparently used it for wedding cakes, so we know the batter ingredients can be easily multiplied.  This cake freezes well before frosting.  

I use mascarpone instead of cream cheese, because the latter that I can has got a heavy gummy texture.  Use your paddle beater when making the icing so that the mascarpone blends instead of being over whipped. The Vanilla Essence from Grasse, France is more aromatic and powerful than our domestic estracts and you will use less.