I have never been a fan of carrot kugel/cake, but had this at my friend's house and couldn't stop eating it.

Carrot Kugel:
3 jars carrot baby food - stage 2 (4 oz. each) - when I made this recipe, I used canned pumpkin instead and used about 20 ounces instead of 12 - it made the cake sooo moist and tasted even better than using the carrots
1 1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup vanilla sugar
3/4 cup oil
4 eggs
2 cups flour (I used half whole wheat)
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 tsp cinnamon

Bake at 350 for about an hour

This sounds like the recipe that I made at home in the summer. My dad, who's not a fan of these kinds of kugels (he likes more traditional type stuff) loved it, which is quite the compliment!! It was really, really good.

Testify!

do you serve it as dessert or as a side dish?

My neighbor made this for us when we moved into the building and it was delish (I know because I got recipe from her. But I used carrots and all regular flour


I serve it as a side dish.

Sometimes as a side dish, sometimes as dessert.

I have almost the same recipe but mine is different by
2 cups plain sugar, 1 1/2 cups oil, 3 tsp baking powder, 2 tsp vanilla
I guess I don't need all that oil if you make it with half the amount?

I make this (or something very similar) as carrot muffins.

i mentioned somewhere already (probably a dozen times, too) that i make the carrot kugel from KBD short on time - it also calls for carrot baby jars (when i read it, i thought "eeeeew"); it also has caramelized bran/corn flakes on top. i've never liked carrot kugels before, but i myself could eat the whole pan in one time, and so can my daughter. i think most of the ingredients are the same, but mine has less of them, i believe (didn't think of substituting half the flour for whole wheat. great idea; thanks!)

i also use this recipe for muffins but i use a mini muffin tin and my kids gobble it up

Uh, no one noticed that this went from being "carrot kugel" to pumpkin bread in the first ingredient substitution? BTW, I LOVE pumpkin bread, and this certainly looks like a decent recipe, but it is NOT kugel and definitely NOT carrot, if you've taken all the carrots out and subbed it with pumpkin. And a good addition if you leave the carrots is rum.

Wow, that must have been awkward for everyone involved. Did they try to stop you or did they just let you go through the whole thing in one shot?

do you make it in a square flat pan or a 9 x 13? or a loaf pan?

okay DUH everyone knows that pumpkin is made from carrots

You will notice that I left in all the original ingredients and only added my modifications. The cake that I originally ate was made with the carrot baby food - I used pumpkin b/c it was all I had on hand and ended up liking it more. However, I still think it's good to post the originally recipe with suggested substitutions so people can decide for themselves what they'd like to do. (Some people don't know about obvious substituations). For some strange reason, Jews like to serve cake with the main meal and just call it kugel. Go figure. (Anything to add on those extra pounds!!!!)



Square flat 9x13.

yeah, like apple-cranberry "kugel" served with meat/chicken. took a while to get used to that one.

there was supposed to be a comma there, right?

So then that would be a rectangular 9x13 pan?

Yeah, rectangular. That size sounds right.

i made this last night with the pumpkin.

1) it took almost 2 hrs to bake - i used an 8x8 pan and a loaf pan, so it might've been that it was too much batter in the pan.
2) when it first came out it was really really mushy on the inside and sort of dry on the outside (probably from overbaking), but when it cooled overnight, it was more of a solid consistency on the inside and the outside sort of moistened... is that what it's supposed to look like? solid pumpkin pie?

I find when I make carrot/pumpkin cake/kugel it always takes me a longer time to cook than recipe calls for, but I have an old oven so attribute it to that.

Regarding the moistness on outside, was it covered. I find if covered to soon after taken out without cooling fully, it will add moisture.

I used a 9x13, and it only cooked a little over an hour. I did move it from the top rack to the bottom at a certain point, b/c my oven is a little weird. Maybe I used less than 20 oz. of pumpkin filling - it was a 23 oz can and I didn't use the entire thing - so the amount of pumpkin filling was kind of an estimate. I'm sorry if that messed things up for you. It's more like a very moist cake, not like pumpkin pie constistency at all. None of mine was dry, it was sooo moist. That's what I liked about it.

totally not your fault. plus, it was still good and we liked it.
i had to change the recipe somewhat: i used the entire can of pumpkin (i think 24 oz?) cuz i knew i wasn't going to use the last few oz for anything. i also used only 2 eggs due to an egg shortage. maybe i'll add a little more flour next time.
yesterday we ate the loaf (which was about 4" deep). it wasn't terrible, just mushy. i thought it was much better once it cooled off completely and solidified.

i froze the 8x8 for shabbos so i'll let you know if that one comes out any differently (unless freezing killed it).

I just made it using a 15 oz. can of pumpkin - it came out really good.
I also made it completely with white whole wheat flour.