Carrot cake

I haven't been able to do a lot of baking lately, but I did find time to try out this carrot cake recipe I found in the January/February 2013 issue of Taste of Home. This recipe was crazy good, but it also has a crazy thick layer of cream cheese frosting on top. It was almost too much frosting. Almost. My hubby really enjoyed the addition of crushed pineapple in the cake.

Here's the recipe, if you want to try it at home.  This would be a terrific cake for Easter or to bring to a church potluck.  Enjoy!

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Carrot Cake

Recipe from Taste of Home

• 3 C. shredded carrots
• 1 can (20 oz.) crushed pineapple, well drained
• 2 C. sugar
• 1 C. canola oil
• 4 eggs
• 2 C. flour
• 2 tsp. baking soda
• 2 tsp. cinnamon

Frosting:

• 1 package (8 oz.) cream cheese, softened
• 1/4 C. butter, softened
• 2 tsp. vanilla extract
• 3-3/4 C. confectioners' sugar

In a large bowl, beat the first five ingredients until well blended. In another bowl, mix the flour, baking soda and cinnamon; gradually beat into carrot mixture.

Transfer mixture to a greased 13-inch-by-9-inch baking pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 35 to 40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.  Cool completely in pan on wire rack.

For frosting, in a large bowl, beat the cream cheese, butter and vanilla until blended. Gradually beat in confectioners' sugar until smooth. Spread over cake. Cover and refrigerate leftovers.

Iowa recipes: Zucchini Cake

 

No, this isn't a Spam cake.  I just love the mug I got at the Spam Museum this spring :)

I've actually posted this recipe for Zucchini Cake on my blog before, but it was back before I knew that it's important to write very specific titles in order for folks to find the recipe when searching Google.

And this is a terrific recipe that I want to share with as many of you as possible!

I found this zucchini cake recipe in one of the old church cookbooks my mother-in-law gave me.  My husband remembers his mom baking this cake when he was a kid.  It's pretty much the only way I can get him to eat zucchini, although I'm trying to change that. By that's another story.

Now you can shred the zucchini before adding it to the cake batter, but my husband likes it better when the zucchini is cut up in little chucks, so it has the texture of a chopped-up apple in the cake.  It really makes the cake moist.

But the best part of this cake is the chocolate chip/brown sugar/chopped nut topping.  It's the perfect snack cake to eat with coffee (preferably in a Spam mug. LOL.)

Hope you enjoy this recipe!

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Zucchini Chocolate Cake

• - 1/4 c. butter, softened
• - 1/2 c. oil
• - 1-1/2 c. sugar
• - 2 eggs
• - 1 tsp. vanilla
• - 1/2 c. milk
• - 2-1/2 c. flour
• - 4 tbsp. cocoa
• - 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
• - 1/2 tsp. baking powder
• - 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• - 1/2 tsp. salt
• - 2 c. peeled, finely chopped zucchini

Mix all ingredients together, except zucchini. Add zucchini last and mix well. Spread in 9x13 greased pan. Mix the following and sprinkle on top:

• - 1 c. chopped nuts
• - 1 c. chocolate chips
• - 1 tbsp. sugar
• - 2 tbsp. brown sugar

Bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes.

The food of angels

I did it!  It took 36 eggs and a lot of frustration, but I finally baked an angel food cake -- from scratch!

Angel food is one of my favorite desserts.  My mom would always bake me an angel food cake for my springtime birthday when I was growing up.  She would drizzle it with powdered sugar icing and then serve it with vanilla ice cream.  I always requested the "Funfetti" angel food with the colored sprinkles, because it seemed extra special.
 
As goofy as this sounds, it never occurred to me that you didn't need a boxed cake mix to make angel food.  Then a few years back I saw a made-from-scratch recipe, and I wanted to try it for myself.  But I couldn't believe all the eggs required to make an angel food. A whole carton of eggs, and only the egg whites?  Now I know why people prefer the boxed version.

But I'm a bit obsessed with learning how to make things the old-fashioned way.  So last year, I bought myself a nifty new angel food pan (with a removeable bottom for easy cake removal) and tried to make the angel food cake recipe I found in Martha Stewart's "Everyday Food" magazine. 

Unfortunately, it was a total fail!  The cake looked beautiful, but it smelled like rotten eggs.  No kidding!  So I looked up my problem on Google to see what I could have done wrong.  It turns out that "eggy" smelling angel food is a common problem.  No one had a good answer for why, except that the eggs should be as fresh as possible.

So this year, I tried to make angel food with farm fresh eggs from a neighbor who raises her own chickens.  How did the cake turned out?  Another fail!  The egg whites were nearly impossible to separate from the yolks, and there were little black bits of something (dirt, bugs?) in the egg whites.

Plus, I failed to read the recipe correctly, and I ended up overbeating the egg whites. They fell flat!  I was pretty disappointed, because I was really craving angel food!

I wanted to give up, but I'm just too stubborn.  So I gave it one more try.  I used the freshest grocery store eggs I could find.  At first, the eggs didn't want to foam up.  But after they warmed up (they weren't quite at room temperature), I had the beginnings of angel food batter.

I used the Heavenly Angel Food Cake recipe from Taste of Home, because I liked that I could use just all-purpose flour instead of cake flour.

The angel food stuck to the pan terribly, but it still looks OK.  And it tastes even better.  Just like the boxed variety that I love so much.

Will I make angel food cake again?  Probably.  But maybe only once a year when strawberries are in season.  And I'll definitely top my next cake with powdered sugar icing, just like my mom did.

Martha Monday

Welcome to the first edition of Martha Monday! In my quest to learn how to cook, bake and garden, I've developed a fascination with all things Martha Stewart. It started with clipping a few recipes out of a Martha Stewart Living magazine. Then I discovered the Martha Stewart show on television thanks to TiVo. I just adore her lessons on crafting, cooking and appreciating the "good things" in life.

I recently stumbled onto the wonderful Martha and Me blog, where the author attempts to incorporate Martha's homekeeping tips in her everyday life. On a whim, I decided to join the blog's Martha Mondays group. Each week, I'll try a new Martha project and share my results with all of you.

This week's project is molasses spice cake. I was sold on this recipe the first time I saw it. Molasses, cream cheese frosting and caramel topping, how could I not fall in love?

With all the canning and bread-baking I've been doing lately, it was such a treat to make a cake from scratch. And it seemed very old-fashioned, in a way. No multiple layers. Just a simple round cake.

The cake baked up beautifully, and the spices smelled so good right out of the oven. I found the recipe yielded way too much cream cheese frosting, so I took a couple tablespoons of frosting off the top. The caramel topping was amazing; I wanted to dip an apple in it.

My husband couldn't wait until I took the picture before digging into the cake.

However, I have to admit that this cake was just "OK" for me. The molasses flavor was a little strong, and I couldn't find fresh ginger in my small-town grocery store, so I had to add the powdered stuff. But still a show-stopping cake. Can't wait for next week's project!