I am Hilah, and today is our 200th episode of Hilah Cooking.

I just made like a thousand zeros with my hands.

It's only 200 though, and I know that I said I was gonna to do healthy food all month

and that we were gonna to like get in shape and blah, blah, blah, and no more drugs, and

whatever, but I figured for 200 we needed to do something a little bit special, so I

am gonna to show you a really, really moist and yummy carrot cake recipe.

We are gonna to do a maple-orange cream cheese frosting on top.

It's super-delicious.

This is one of my friend Natalie's favorite cakes and she requests that I make it for

her birthday, so now I am making it for episode 200 so you can make it for your loved ones

birthdays' too, and they'll say “mwaaah!

I love you,” and I'll say “mwaaaah!

I love you to,” and then they'll say ,“I love you back,” and I'll say “I love

you more,” and they'll say, “no, I love you more!” and then they'll say, “no,

I love you more!” and then it's like, “Stop!!”

[MUSIC]

[How To Make Carrot Cake]

>> Hilah: Obviously we are gonna to start with some carrots.

I've got my grated carrots here.

This is about half a pound of carrots that I just grated on the large holes of a hand

grater.

It makes about two cups.

You want to kind of lightly, lightly pack it in there, and then I've got some hot

water, and I'm using the wrong type of measuring cub, but that's okay.

I'm a professional.

Okay.

Awesome!

And that's just sort of to get the carrots a little bit softened up.

So, here we go.

All right, so I am gonna to add some sugar to this, and I am using it in a combination

of raw sugar and white sugar, but you can use all white sugar or all raw sugar or whatever

you want, and some vegetable oil, and some vanilla extract, and we got this actually

on our last trip to New Orleans at this little store called Kitchen Witch.

It's a neat little store.

I was surprised it's all like old cookbooks and stuff and new cookbooks, so kind of a

lot of this, but they make their own vanilla extract and it smells really good, so that's

fun, and then I've got three eggs.

I am gonna to go ahead and sort of like beat these up a little bit ahead of time.

Okay, and now into this.

I am just gonna to mix this on low speed for about a minute until it's really, really

well incorporated.

Okay, and once this looks good, you don't see any little egg chunks hanging out by themselves,

everybody has joined the party, we can start adding in our dry mix.

Okay, I am gonna stop it and just scrape do when the side and make sure all the flour

is gettin' in there.

Perfecto!

Okay.

Now, we're ready to divide it into our pans.

Now, you can bake this cake in a 13” by 9” rectangle and just serve it right out

of the pan if you want to, if you're not trying to be too fancy or anything, but because

it's episode 200 I wanted to make it a little bit prettier because I care, and so I've

got two nine inch rounds that I've lightly greased and then cut out some parchment paper

to line the bottom.

That's gonna make it so much easier to get the cake out of the pan later on.

If you don't have parchment paper, you can do just a little bit of oil, rub it all around,

and then like a tablespoon of flour and kinda like do this number to get the flour coating

everything, but I, whatever, you know, I love parchment paper for a show like this, so all

right, we're just gonna divide it up between our two to try to make it as even as you can.

So I like to do a blob like less than half, something that I know is less than half, and

then go over to the other one and do about that amount, and just sorta try to even it

out from there.

So now it kind of, level it out, and this one needs a little bit more, and now this

one needs a little bit more.

Okay.

Great!

So that looks pretty even.

I am gonna bake these for about 25 minutes until a toothpick inserted into the center

comes out clean.

If you were doing a 13” by 9” it would take more like 40 minutes, but this is faster

too, so that's better.

All right.

While our cakes a baking we can make our icing.

Oh my God!

I need to learn how to talk in the new year too.

So I've got some cream cheese, and the thing about cream cheese.

Son of a . . .! The thing about cream cheese icings is to have your cream cheese cold,

but have your butter nice and soft.

Beat this together until it starts to, well, until it's combined, until it's also like

kinda fluffy lookin'.

You'll see.

Okay.

So this looks good.

You can see it's all smooth in consistency and color, no chunks of anything, and it looks

pretty light and fluffy textured.

So we can add our flavoring ingredients, so I am gonna do a little bit of vanilla just

because you know, vanilla kind of goes in everything, and then a little bit of maple

syrup, and then a whole bunch of orange zest.

So, it'll probably take two of these smallish oranges because I need about a tablespoon,

so bear with me.

All right.

Yeah, so about two oranges.

I got a tablespoon of zest, and hang onto those oranges.

You might need to add some of the juice to the icing to adjust the consistency of it,

but we might not.

It'll just kind of depend on, I don't know, circumstances beyond my control.

So get that mixed up, and then I've got my powdered sugar here that I measured it

first, and then I sifted it, and now we're just sorta gonna add it in little bits.

I am not gonna add it while the machine is running because I don't want powdered sugar

to fly all into my face.

[SOUND] Okay, and it's kind of amazing to me every time actually that it actually that

it totally works.

Like now it looks like icing.

So I am just gonna keep doing that, adding a little bit, maybe a half a cup at a time,

beating it in, starting on low and then going up to medium until it's, until we have our

icing.

All right.

So I've got all of my powdered sugar into my icing, and this is pretty good.

I don't need to add any orange juice to this.

If you were working in a dryer environment, you might need to, but my humidity seems to

be working in my favor.

So, my cake's almost done, but I need to let it cool completely before we ice it.

So I am gonna save this and just sort of like, I am gonna cover this in some plastic and

put this whole thing in the refrigerator.

That way whenever I'm ready to ice I can just put this back on here and beat it up

again just sort of fluff it up a little bit to get a little softer, and it'll stiffen

up as it sits.

Even if I wasn't gonna refrigerate it would stiffen up a little bit as it sits.

So, time to get my cake out, enough yakkin'!

Okay my cakes are done, and I just did the little toothpick test.

You just stick a toothpick right in the center, and if it comes out clean, no like cake crumbs

and junk all stuck to it, then you're good to go.

So I am gonna let these cool in the pans until they're totally cool.

That'll take about an hour, and then we'll dump them out and we're ready to ice.

Time to ice!

All right.

I've got my icing fairly firm.

I've got my cake here completely cooled.

Just sort of blob some on in the middle, and you know, I probably don't need to remind

you that I'm not a cake decorator, but I know what good cake tastes like.

So, I like to go for a rustic look.

So just sort of spread it out from the middle out to the edges.

Don't, you don't want to go all the way to the very, very edge, well, unless you're

edging, unless you're gonna ice the outsides, but because when you put the next layer on

top it'll make it kind of like spooge out, so just stop like a quarter of an inch, half

a centimeter away from the edge.

I am tryin' to go metric for y'all see!

I'm tryin' to be helpful.

All right.

Now, I am ready for my second layer, and if your oven is like mine, and it doesn't really

heat very evenly, your cakes might end up a little bit like tilted downwards or something,

so that's okay, just try to even it out.

You see on this one.

This side is higher than this one, so when I put the second layer on, I'll do the opposite,

so then the cake is all nice and flat on top.

So that's my trick.

Awesome!

Oh, you know what?

If you were gonna be trying to transport this cake, put a little glob of icing on the platter

between the first layer and the platter to hold the cake in place.

That's a little tip that I usually forget to do, and then my cake's slidin' all

around my platter when I take it in the car.

So learn from my mistakes.

All right!

Look how pretty that is!

I am gonna have a slice and some coffee.

I am pretty proud of that!

So, if you wanted put a little bit more orange zest on top, you could decorate it like that.

Man!

This looks so nice I almost don't even want to cut it, but I guess I have to.

Man!

It's a rough life.

I am just gonna get a little piece because you know, I haven't even had lunch yet.

Look how beautiful!

It all stays together.

Look at that beautifully nice, spicy looking cake there full of carrots and other healthy

stuff like eggs and oils and sugar [laughs].

I am not tryin' to fool myself here.

Okay!

I am gonna take a little bitey bite.

I am just gonna, yeah, I am just gonna do it that way I think.

So, beautiful textured.

This is just like, it's almost like a pound cake but not quite as heavy, you know, the

pound cakes can be a little bit heavy and dense, but it's so moist, tender, delicious,

spicy, sweet with the orange in there is to die for, and so man, this would be great for

a birthday, for a 200 episode celebration, just like, with a cup of coffee for a little

afternoon snack, cup of tea for your tea over there on the other side of the pond.

I hope you try this recipe, the lovely carrot cake.

Remember to subscribe to the channel if you haven't already, and I love you!

Happy 200 episodes!

I can't believe I made it this far.

Thanks so much for watching and I really, really appreciate all your support.

If you have any questions, leave them below in the comments.

I'll get to them as soon as I can, and thumbs up and favorite and subscribe and all that

stuff.

Yay!

Mmmmmm mmmmmm.

[MUSIC]