Craftsman and Wolves: Perfect Timing for This Spicy, Pretty Carrot Cake | Eater SF
"On her first visit Samantha Ceccotti remembers that the smells "took her in" and that the architecture of the space was unlike anything she’d seen back in her hometown of Philadelphia; she wanted to create thoughtful, edible pieces of art like everything in this temple to sweetness. She took over as owner Lawrence Lai’s head baker in 2021 and has since overseen a number of bakes, including countless examples of the ever-popular, egg-studded Rebel Within. Even after dozens of holiday specials, Ceccotti outdid herself with this year’s Easter offerings: her splashy Not Your Grandma’s Carrot Cake is topped with a bouquet of macarons (Lai’s idea) to invoke an Easter egg hunt and "went on sale on Friday, April 4, through to Easter on Sunday, April 20," alongside another seasonal item, the Peep Show, a set of four takes on toothsomely sweet Peeps elevated with equally nostalgic flavors including Fruity Pebbles and Frosted Flakes. The carrot cake is baked in batches by night at an off-site facility in the Bayview and includes canola oil, vanilla, nutmeg, and cinnamon combined with carrots from Northern California — but Ceccotti also uses cayenne "to wake up diners’ taste buds and get them going for another bite," and Northwestern huckleberries to offer "a sweet, complex balance to cayenne’s one-note heat and cut against the ginger creme fraiche ganache." "I wanted to add these secret pops," Ceccotti says. The piece also touches on broader context: bakers added carrots to cakes as early as the 15th century, and the carrot cake’s mainstay status was cemented during World War II when the British Ministry of Food encouraged baking with homegrown carrots as part of "victory garden" staples and wartime rationing (ads even suggested carrots would help citizens "see in the dark" during blackout conditions). The write-up notes current economic tensions — an "obscene trade war," rising prices and the uneasy prospect that ingredient costs could spike ("some days it feel like it could be a cool $400 to buy a carton of eggs by June") — while pointing out that the United States is the fifth-largest sugar producer and the second-largest carrot producer after China. Undeterred, Ceccotti is still "socketing macarons into place atop a little spark of seasonal, historic pleasure" and sees the cake as a symbol of resilience: "I don’t want to put too much pressure on carrot cake," Ceccotti says with a laugh, "but I could see the carrot cake as a kind of symbol, of what we’ve been through in the past, what we’ve experienced, and what we’ve overcome." For a bakery on Valencia Street, the release feels like a fitting celebration and a sign that Ceccotti can still capture customers’ attention the way the shop first did with her." - Paolo Bicchieri
