Big Mary’s Carrot Cake

For years my mother has been compiling recipes from various corners of her universe. There are tear-outs from newspapers and now-defunct magazines, decades-old spiral-bound cookbooks from PTA fundraisers at the local elementary school, and, my personal favorites, the handwritten recipes (in cursive!) on faded index cards from Big Mary. 

Big Mary was my Grandma Mary’s older cousin (hence the nickname). While my grandmother was not much of a baker and didn’t much like to cook, Big Mary by all accounts was the exact opposite. I never met her, but my mother tells me stories about how companies would try to buy her baking recipes and she — a private person — would have none of it. 

She did, however, share a few of her prized creations with her family, which is how a handwritten recipe for this carrot cake ended up on that faded index card in my mom’s hands and, eventually, my own.

What’s remarkable about this carrot cake is that it doesn’t require you to grate a single carrot. That pronounced carrot flavor is derived from jars of baby food. (Bonus: It also makes for an extra-moist cake.) It might sound funny now, but when I was growing up it never occurred to me that carrot cake would be made any other way. In our houses, it still isn’t.

And to this day, it’s the one we make for family celebrations or when my sister randomly requests it. (It’s her favorite cake and, according to her, “It tastes like fall.”) While the walnuts are optional, particularly for some nut-averse family members, I consider them a must have — both mixed in the cake batter and sprinkled atop the icing. They add a nice crunch to an otherwise homogeneous texture. 

I like to take the cream cheese out ahead of time, so it softens some by the time I get around to beating the icing. (Fun fact: My mother still does this by hand with a vintage potato masher.) Sometimes if I’m feeling extra generous I’ll increase the icing measurements by a third to get even more coverage of that tangy-yet-sweet frosting. But the recipe below is Big Mary’s original, which is what I’d want the world — outside of our own universe — to enjoy.