Brazilian Carrot Cake & Redneck chocolate glaze

It might be a bit of an exaggeration to call this a carrot cake ... but apparently the half a cup of grated carrot constitutes a carrot cake in Brazil. The cake is especially soft and spongy, which I would like to say is thanks to the vegetable matter (think: zucchini muffins), but is more likely thanks to the generous serving of oil to go with your vegetable of the day.

Like in so many moms and grandma recipes, "measure" has no meaning here. But fear not, there is at least a system of comparison. Each 'cuppa' is based on the glass below, which is exactly 3/4 a cup in American measure.

"Cuppa" Carrot Cake
cuppa vegetable oil (3/4 cup)
2 cupps-a sugar (1.5 cups)
4 eggs
1 carrot, shredded
2 cupps-a flour (1.5 cups0
1 tbsp baking powder




"Caipira" Redneck chocolate glaze:
4 heaping spoons of sugar
4 spoonfuls of milk
2.5 tsp (one hunking scoop) butter
2 heaping spoons of cocoa powder


For the cake:
With a good mixer, or idealy an immersion blender, mix the sugar, eggs, vegetable oil and shredded carrot.

Stir together the baking powder and flour and whisk into the liquid mixture.

Butter a cake pan (the one in the photo is the only pan we have... but it is best in a traditional 9x13 flat pan)

Bake at 180ºC for 20 minutes, then reduce the temperature to 150ºC until lightly golden and you can see the cake starts to pull away from the edges. 


Caipira Chocolate Glaze
Note: this sauce needs to finish at the same time that the cake comes out of the oven. 

The sauce will thicken as it cools, but if both the sauce and the cake are warm when it is poured, the sauce will find all the right nooks and crannies to impregnate the cake.

SO, in the last 10 minutes that the cake is baking, make your redneck glaze: 

In a sauce pan, stir together all the ingredients for the glaze and place over medium heat. Continue to stir as it all melts together, then let it cook a bit... until it thickens and starts to leave traces in the pan as you stir.

As soon as the cake comes out of the oven, use a knife to poke holes all over the top.

Poooouuur the glaze over top and watch lovingly as it disappears into the cake and all around the sides. 

As an extra, you can grate chocolate over the top, wait until it starts to melt and spread with a knife. If you cover the cake well, it will harden into a nice, lightly crunchy crust.