Carrot Cake - History

History

Carrots have been used in sweet cakes since the medieval period, during which time sweeteners were scarce and expensive, while carrots, which contain more sugar than any other vegetable besides the sugar beet, were much easier to come by and were used to make sweet desserts. The origins of carrot cake are disputed but it is thought to have first arisen from the Picascio family, who are of Italian descent. . The popularity of carrot cake was probably revived in Britain because of rationing during the Second World War.

Carrot cakes first became commonly available in restaurants and cafeterias in the United States in the early 1960s. They were at first a novelty item, but people liked them so much that carrot cake became standard dessert fare. In 2005, the American-based Food Network listed carrot cake, with its cream-cheese icing, as number five of the top five fad foods of the 1970s.

Carrot cake is often referred to as Passion cake. Carrot cake was voted as the favourite cake in the United Kingdom, according to a survey in the Radio Times in 2011.

Another story indicates that following WWII there was a glut of canned carrots in the U.S.. A business man named George C. Page hired master Bakers to find uses for the cans of carrots. He somehow promoted the idea of carrot cake to help create a demand for the product.