Carrot cake is comfort. Not only because it contains carrots, so I feel like I am being healthy and eating a vegetable when it is saturated with sugar, and not even just because the spices bring out nostalgia, but also because, and this might be a little petty, an ex of mine is allergic to carrots, so the first thing I did when he ghosted me was bake a carrot cake, since now I could finally eat them. I always loved carrot cake, but after that traumatic dating experience, my love for carrot cake was a coping mechanism for being blind-sighted. You are supposed to learn something from every relationship, and my main lesson was that while men can tell you that they love you and that you are the most important person to them, and in the same month, disappear on you with no trace or notice, carrot cake can be there to help you stitch the pieces back together. Mostly because it is so rich and decadent that you can use it to stick a lot of things back together. You can probably use pureed carrot cake to line bricks for a house, honestly. However, this carrot cake is not just a normal carrot cake. I went the route of a financier, or a French brown butter-almond sponge cake, but using ground walnuts instead of almond flour, and incorporating the finely grated carrots into the brown butter. I also wanted to make this cake especially fancy, so I went with a rum raisin gelee, in lieu of putting actual raisins into my batter, and instead of cream cheese frosting, whipping some goat cheese with a little tonka bean. The end result are these super dainty and cute carrot cake cubes that could be sold in a bougie bakery in Japan, France, or Korea!

For the components, we have the carrot cake-walnut financier, rum raisin gelee, which will be used as both gelee cubes as a garnish and a pipeable fluid gel filling, the tonka bean-whipped goat’s cheese, and some glazed carrot ribbons to finish. In terms of technical difficulty, I would say that the hardest thing would be the financier itself. And even then, the only challenging part is incorporating the brown butter into your batter. If the brown butter is too hot, you run the risk of it exploding and burning you when you add the grated carrots into it. So be very careful when you mix the brown butter with the carrots. It is important that you do this step, though, since the carrots bring down the temperature of the brown butter, while the brown butter heats up the carrots, and releases some of the excess moisture from the carrots themselves, preventing your batter from being too wet or heavy. While the gelee sounds like it will be this super fancy and challenging component, so long as you follow the recipe, it is super easy. It uses agar, which sets things firm and quick, and the fluid gel is made by pureeing a portion of that gelee with water. The only thing that is important for the gelee is making sure that you hydrate then puree the raisins until they are a smooth consistency. Otherwise, the gelee will taste grainy or lumpy, instead of silky. The whipped goat’s cheese can be made with a stand mixer, but it is even easier to do by hand, and that is quite rare, but convenient, in baking. I shave my carrot ribbons using a mandolin usually, but a vegetable peeler also works quite nicely. For the grated carrots, you can use the pre-grated, and that is fine since they contain less moisture, but if you are grating them by hand, just be careful to not grate yourself, which is something that can happen often when grating a vegetable.

For the carrot cake financier batter:
2 egg whites
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
a pinch of salt
a pinch of cinnamon
1 cup finely ground walnuts(can substitute with almond flour)
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 stick unsalted butter
1 cup grated carrots

In a bowl, whisk the egg whites with sugar, vanilla, salt, and cinnamon until lightly frothy. Sift into that the walnuts and flour first, stirring until just combined. In a pot, heat up your butter until it becomes amber-brown in color and is no longer bubbling. Carefully add to that the grated carrots, stirring them into the butter off-heat to bring down the temperature of the brown butter. Pour that mixture into the flour-egg batter and fold that all together to form your financier batter. Pipe into silicone cube baking molds the batter, filling them about halfway up. Bake the financiers at 375 degrees F for 15 minutes. Allow the financier to cool before attempting to remove them.

For the rum raisin gelee:
1 tbsp brown butter
1/4 cup raisins
1oz silver rum
3/4 cups water, in three parts
2 tbsp granulated sugar
a pinch of salt
1 tsp agar agar

In a pan, heat up the brown butter with raisins and salt. Add in the rum, flambeing if able to, and if not, cooking that down until the alcohol evaporates. Add two parts of the water, all of the sugar, and the salt to the pan and allow that to cook together on low heat until the sugar and salt are dissolved into the liquid. Transfer everything to a blender or food processor and puree until smooth. Return to a pan or pot and add the agar, stirring everything on low heat until everything is melted together. Pour into a shallow container and refrigerate until set. Cut into small 1/4-inch cubes, and keep 1/4 of the cubes in the freezer for easier assembly. With the remaining cubes, puree that with the remaining one part of water to form a rum raisin fluid gel, which will be piped into the cakes upon assembly.

For the tonka goat’s cheese mousse:
4oz goat’s cheese
2oz heavy cream
2oz granulated sugar
a pinch of salt
.1g finely grated tonka bean

In a bowl, cream the goat’s cheese until soft and spreadable. In a pot, heat up heavy cream, sugar, salt, and the tonka bean until the sugar and salt are dissolved into the cream, and pour that over the goat’s cheese, whipping everything together until just combined. Transfer the mousse into a piping bag to finish.

For garnish:
1 carrot, shaved into thin ribbons
1 tbsp granulated sugar
2 tbsp hot water

In a bowl, mix the sugar and water together until dissolved. Toss the carrot shavings into the syrup.

With the financier, core out the centers and pipe in the fluid gel. Then pipe on top the goat cheese, and garnish the top with cubes of gelee and the carrot shavings to finish.