Oh Summer, I'm so glad you have arrived

It’s been nearly two weeks since summer started and I’m very pleased that Summer has decided to bring proper, warm, summery weather (unlike the disappointing weather we had last summer). I still cannot reasonably go anywhere for the day without a sweater, but at least during the early afternoon I am free of the blasted things! Due to things out of my control, my first week of summer was, well, lackluster, but it was nice to actually get to sleep for a change. This past week has been much more productive, if not terribly thrilling, and I am checking things off my seemingly overwhelming to-do list.

Summer always seems to make me acutely aware of how much gas I use. I think it’s because I tend to drive between cities much more often during the summer. We recently acquired a new Ford Fiesta (it’s black and small and cute!) and I am certainly grateful for its fantastic MPG. On a small tank ($30 to fill your tank full!) it can go some pretty incredible distances. The tank is not more than 9 gallons. When you fill it up and look at the car’s estimated miles to empty it comes out around 400, and I have to say that it’s pretty accurate. Last weekend on 3/4 of a tank of gas I drove around 300 miles: San Diego to LA, a little bit within Santa Monica & West LA, LA to Irvine, Irvine to Anaheim, Anaheim to Irvine, and Irvine to San Diego. I’m pretty impressed, anyway. I should post a picture of the car up on here, but alas, I didn’t bother to take a picture when it was clean and shiny and, let’s be honest, I’m probably not going to wash it for awhile. I will have to post a picture some other time.

Speaking of photos, aren’t we cute?

Hopefully, you haven’t run screaming for your lives because of my creepy looking toes in that picture because we haven’t gotten to the fun part yet! Just before the end of school, some classmates and I had a BBQ in honor of summer, the end of the school year and an early birthday celebration. What’s a birthday celebration, even an early one, without a cake?! I made a carrot cake because the birthday girl said she likes carrot cake. I also used my awesome neon colors food coloring to make the frosting pink since she loves pink.

But first, a side note on carrots. Ever wonder what the exactly is the difference between baby carrots and regular carrots? Are baby carrots just that, young carrots? The answer is yes and no. A “true” baby carrot is a carrot grown and cultivated before the root reaches its mature size, hence it is a “baby” carrot. However, more commonly, in the US at least, is the manufactured or fake baby carrot. It all started when a California farmer, Mike Yurosek, got tired for having to throw away as much as 400 metric tons (that’s 1000 kg or 400 tonnes for our friends across the pond) per day due to imperfections. Back in the 1980s, he developed a method using a green bean cutter and a potato peeler to convert that part of his crop which was perfectly edible, though not so aesthetically pleasing, into the ubiquitous baby carrot of today. In 1999, peeled baby carrot sales surpassed that of whole carrots and 94% of US consumers bought baby carrots. (Source) Neat, right? Thank you, Mike Yurosek, from all of carrot kind. You’ve given each and every little carrot the chance to make it into a delicious carrot cake or onto a veggie platter.


I don’t think that carrot cake is a particularly popular cake. I used to have it for my birthdays as a little girl and then I lost touch with it for quite some years. I am happy to have it back in my life, because, when done well, it is quite a delicious cake.

To start out with, you’ll need to grate some carrots. There are a couple options to do this. You can grate the carrots by hand using a cheese grater. I’ve done this before. It certainly works, but it takes some time and effort. Watch out for your fingers as you grate the very end of the carrot. The grater can actually hurt a bit. The less industrious among us can go for option number 2, which is to toss the carrots into a food processor or one of those little mini choppers like I did. You’ll need 2 cups. I used baby carrots and I have no idea how many I used. Something less than 1 lb.

Once you’ve got your carrots prepared, in a large bowl blend together 2 cups of sugar, 1 cup oil and 4 eggs.

Next combine the dry ingredients in a separate bowl before mixing them into the wet ingredients…or just toss them in. I was in a separate bowl sort of mood when I made this, but it’s not crucial.

See that little tongue sticking out in the bottom right of the picture? Yes, those are my puppy slippers brought to you courtesy of my bff. Next add in your 2 cups of grated carrots and stir it all together. Pour this mixture into a greased and lightly floured pan and pop it in the oven. How long it needs to bake will depend on what type of pan you used. For example, I used a very deep 9” round pan and it took almost an hour to bake all the way through. If you use a sheet pan, and thus are making a thinner cake, it’ll be closer to 25 minutes. Just keep an eye on it and pull it out when it’s not sticky or jiggly anymore.

There it is! My Frankenstein of a carrot cake! Thank goodness for yummy frosting and sprinkles!
While you are waiting for the cake to cool, go ahead and whip up some cream cheese frosting, the classic companion for carrot cake. If you want to be awesome (I mean super super awesome) you could add chopped pecans to the frosting! Alas, I did not because most people I know don’t like nuts in anything! Such a tragedy!!!

Note: Neon food coloring is always appropriate.
When you’re ready to frost the cake and you’ve made a cake like this, there is a very important step—flip the cake upside down. This gives you a nice flat surface to frost. I could have split this cake in half and made two layers, but i decided to just have a really fat single layer cake instead. First put on a thin layer of frosting all around. This layer is like a primer or a crumb layer. You can cover it up with another layer of frosting once you’ve made all the crumbs that you’re going to make.

Frankenstein lives! I had some extra frosting and decided to play around with piping it. There were a couple problems with this 1) I have no artistic ability whatsoever 2) I hadn’t added enough powdered sugar to the frosting because I didn’t want it to be too sweet; it barely even clung on to the cake 3) cream cheese frosting doesn’t like warm apartments and 4) I have no artistic ability whatsoever. Fortunately for me, sprinkles and natural lighting can perform miracles:


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Carrot Cake
This recipe is from The Pioneer Woman
Ingredients

• 2 cups sugar
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 4 whole eggs
• 2 cups flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 2 cups grater carrots

1.  Preheat oven to 350 F
2. Mix sugar, oil & eggs in large bowl. In a separate bowl, sift together flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder & cinnamon.
3. Add the dry mixture to the large bowl and combine. Next add in the carrots and mix well.
4. Pour into a greased and floured pan (any kind you want - bundt pan, springform, round pans, sheet, 13x9, etc, etc). Bake at 350 F for 25-50 minutes depending on pan or until a tooth pick inserted near the center comes out clean.
5. Cool completely
Cream Cheese Frosting

• 1/2 cup butter  
• 8 oz (1 package) cream cheese
• 1 lb. powdered sugar
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 1 cup pecans, chopped finely (optional….but highly recommended if you can get away with it!!)

Cream together butter & cream cheese. Add in vanilla. Mix in powdered sugar until desired taste and consistency is achieved. (Add food coloring if desired) Mix in the nuts and voila!