50 Women Game Changers in Food - #15 Julee Rosso and Sheila Lukins - Carrot Cake

In 1977, Sheila Lukins and Julee Rosso open a Gourmet food shop on the Upper West Side of New York City. They called the store the Silver Palate and from that vantage point they began an effort that changed the way middle-class America eats. The pair wrote three hugely successful books and introduced this country's cooks to an easy, but unconventional, new way to cook and entertain in their homes. The partnership was dissolved in the 90's, but while it was intact, Julee Rosso functioned as its business manager and Sheila Lukins, who is now dead, handled the technical aspects of the venture. The pair managed to demystify gourmet cooking and brought scores of young people to the kitchen with their fresh approach to food preparation and the way they marketed new foods that were just coming on the scene. It would be fair to say they taught a generation of young Americans how to cook and eat in ways quite different from their parents. The pair held a prominent place in the food world for at least a decade. They efforts garnered them position #15 on the Gourmet Live list of 50 Women Game Changers in food.

I've chosen their famous and much heralded carrot cake, which uses a cooked carrot puree rather than grated carrots , as today's featured recipe. It is delicious, but it makes a huge and caloric cake. I'd like to suggest cutting ingredients by 1/3 and baking the cake in a 13 x 9 x 2-inch pan. Just a suggestion mind you. Here's the recipe as it appeared in the original Silver Palate Cookbook.

Carrot Cake...from the kitchen of One Perfect Bite courtesy of Sheila Lukins and Julee Rosso

Ingredients:

Cake

3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

3 cups sugar

1 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon baking soda

1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

1-1/2 cups corn oil

4 large eggs, lightly beaten

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1-1/2 cups shelled walnuts, chopped

1-1/2 cups shredded sweetened coconut

1-1/3 cups pur