Commissary Carrot Cake

|Friday Baking Project|Cakes and Tortes, Friday Blog

04/28/2025

The Commissary was one of the gems of the vibrant Center City Philadelphia restaurant scene in the late 1970’s and 1980’s. Located on Sansom Street, it was a place to meet friends for a casual dinner or sit by yourself in the back and peruse the cook books. For a quick breakfast, there was brioche and coffee; for those with more time, an omelet bar awaited. Like its sister restaurant, Frog, The Commissary introduced many of us to the cuisines of Southeast Asia.

At its core, The Commissary was an upscale cafeteria where guests glided blue trays along a brass rail past various food stations. At the end was the dessert station, where the most popular offering—their famous carrot cake—held court.

This was not your everyday carrot cake. The Commissary Carrot Cake was a multilayered extravaganza: a super moist cake studded with pecans and raisins, layered with a pecan cream filling, iced with cream cheese frosting, and surrounded by lightly toasted coconut. As a special finishing touch, marzipan carrots may be placed on top.

Baked in a tube pan, The Commissary Carrot Cake is easy to slice into thin pieces—perfect for such a rich dessert—and serves between sixteen and eighteen guests.

This is a big two-day project. The pecan cream filling is prepared on day one, giving it enough time to cool and set. Other optional day-one tasks include grating the carrots, mixing the dry ingredients, and prepping the tube pan.

From my test bakes, I learned (the hard way) that properly preparing the cake pan is critical to success. The moist batter loves to cling to the pan, requiring more than the usual butter and flour treatment. My recipe below calls for a parchment paper circle on the pan bottom and parchment paper around the sides to help the baked cake release cleanly.

Among its many virtues, The Commissary Carrot Cake is a wonderfully versatile recipe. For a simpler version, you can skip the pecan cream filling, make extra cream cheese frosting, and use it to fill the cake, leaving the sides exposed for a more rustic look. This recipe also makes exceptional cupcakes (see instructions at the end of the recipe).

For those of us lucky enough to have lived in Philadelphia during The Commissary’s heyday, this cake brings back lovely memories of a special place that captured the spirit of Center City. For everyone who rolls up their sleeves and dives into this recipe, the reward is an exceptional carrot cake experience.

Commissary Carrot Cake

Yield: One 10“cake

# of servings: 16 – 18

Difficulty: Moderate

Ingredients:

Pecan Cream Filling:

1 ½ cup (10.5 oz / 298 g) granulated sugar

¼ cup (1/15 oz / 33 g) all-purpose flour

½ tsp salt

1 ½ cup (12 fl oz) heavy cream

12 tbl (6 oz) unsalted butter, cut into tablespoon sized pieces.

1 ¼ cup (5 oz / 142 g) chopped pecans

2 tsp vanilla extract

Carrot cake batter:

2 cups (9.3 oz / 264 g) all-purpose flour

2 tsp (.30 oz / 9 g) baking powder

1 tsp (.20 oz / 6 g) baking soda

¾ tsp (.15 oz / 4 g) sea salt

2 tsp (.20 oz / 5 g) ground cinnamon

1 ¼ cup (10 fl oz) canola, or other neutral flavored oil

2 cups (14 oz / 397 g) granulated sugar

4 eggs, beaten

4 cups (13.4 oz / 380 g) grated carrots (from a one-pound bag, approximately)

1 cup (4 oz / 114 g) chopped pecans, lightly toasted (optional)

1 cup (4.7 oz / 133 g) dark or golden raisins

Cream cheese icing:

8 oz (227 g) unsalted butter, soft

8 oz (227 g) cream cheese, soft

1 lb box of confectioner’s sugar, sifted

1 tsp vanilla extract

Cake decoration:

1 ½ cups (4 oz / 113 g) shredded unsweetened coconut, lightly toasted

Optional marzipan carrots:

1 4-oz piece of marzipan (in the supermarket baking section)

Orange food coloring, as needed

Green food coloring, as needed

1 tbl light corn syrup

Special tools and equipment needed:

Heat-proof spatula or wooden spoon
Heat diffuser, optional
One 10” tube pan, single piece preferred¹
Parchment paper circles and sheets
Hand held or free-standing mixer with paddle attachment.

Pre-recipe preparations:

Butter the tube pan. Line the bottom and sides with parchment paper, and lightly butter the parchment. This is a critical step and prevents the cake from sticking to the pan.
Wash, peel and grate the carrots using a box grater or the grating attachment of a food processor. Measure and set aside.
Bring eggs to room temperature. Wash, peel, and grate carrots using box grater or shredder attachment on food processor.

Directions

Day 1 – Pecan cream filling: Note: this mixture burns easily. It is important to keep stirring while cooking. A heat diffuser² is very helpful here, reducing the chance of burning and allowing you to take a break from constant stirring

In heavy bottomed 3-qt. saucepan, whisk together the sugar, flour, and salt. In a steady stream, add the heavy cream while whisking constantly.
Add butter pieces and place over low heat, using a heat diffuser if available. Using a heat-proof spatula or wooden spoon, stir constantly over low heat until the butter melts.
Stirring constantly to prevent burning, keep cooking over low-medium heat for approximately 20 to 25 minutes, until the mixture has thickened and reached 235°F. It should be a pale brown in color.
Remove and allow to cool until lukewarm. Stir in the pecan pieces and vanilla extract. Let cool in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours, or overnight.

Day 2: Carrot cake batter: Preheat oven to 350°F

Stir dry ingredients together in mixing bowl. Set aside.
In large mixing bowl with a whisk, or machine bowl with a paddle, mix the oil and sugar until combined. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Mix until thoroughly homogenous.
Stir in flour in two stages, stopping before a totally blended mixture in the 2^nd addition.
Add grated carrots, pecans, and raisins and mix until thoroughly blended. If using mixer, scrape the bottom of the bowl using a plastic spatula and mix to blend.
Pour batter into prepared tube pan and bake until top is firm to the touch and a cake tester come out clean, 55 to 62 minutes.
Remove from the oven and place on a cooling rack, top side up, for 20 minutes. Lower oven the 325°F (for the coconut)
Invert onto a cooling rack or cardboard circle and then invert again onto a cooling rack, so the cake is right-side up. Allow to thoroughly cool.

Toasting the coconut: Oven should be at 325°F

Place the coconut on a parchment or foil-lined cookie sheet or half-sheet pan.
Bake for 6 to 8 minutes, tossing the coconut shreds around about halfway, until the coconut is a light golden brown. Be careful, as coconut goes from not quite done to dark brown very quickly.
Let cool.

Remove pecan cream filling from the refrigerator.

Cream cheese icing: Make sure the butter and cream cheese are at soft room temperature. The cream cheese may be microwaved for 8 to 10 seconds if necessary.

In large mixing bowl or countertop mixer bowl with the paddle attachment, cream the butter until light. Add cream cheese and beat until combined and smooth.
On low speed, mix in the sifted confectioners’ sugar until all the sugar is absorbed. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, add the vanilla extract, and mix until smooth. Set aside in a cool spot.

Finishing the cake:

If pecan cream filling is too firm to spread, microwave in 5 second increments just until spreadable.
Using a long-serrated knife, slice the cake in three even layers.
Place the bottom layer on a cake plate or cardboard circle. Spread with half of the pecan cream. Cover with the second cake layer and spread with the remaining pecan cream. Place the top cake layer on top and press down.
Crumb coat the cake by spreading the thin layer of the cream cheese frosting over the sides and top. Refrigerate until firm, about one hour.
Ice the sides and top of the cake with remaining cream cheese icing. Note: the sides don’t require a complete icing coating due to the next step.
Press the coconut firmly against the sides of the cake.

Optional garnish: Marzipan carrots

Pour light corn syrup into a small saucer. This acts as the glue to hold the green marzipan to the orange. Set aside
Wearing latex gloves, take ¾ of the marzipan and knead orange gel coloring in drop by drop to get the desired shade of orange. Pinch off 16 small pieces and roll them between your hands into small carrot shapes. Using a small paring knife, make lines in the carrots. Set aside.
With fresh gloves, knead green food coloring drop by drop into the remaining marzipan to get the desired shade of green. Pinch of small pieces and roll into a ball. Dip each piece into corn syrup and press against the top of the carrot.
Place the carrots evenly around the top of the cake.

Serving and storage:

Cut into thin slices and serve at room temperature.
Leftovers may be stored in the refrigerator for up to 4 days, but allowed to come to room temperature before serving. Well-wrapped in plastic film, the cake freezes extremely well.

Notes:

Baking Cupcakes: Preheat oven to 375°F

Line 18 standard sized muffin wells with liners. Fill each well with batter just below the top and bake until firm and a cake tester comes out clean, about 18 to 20 minutes. Remove cupcakes to cooling rack. Let cool and pipe or spread cream cheese frosting on top.