Categories
Misc.

Carrot Cake

 

A few weeks ago, I decided that I would be making carrot cake for Easter, and I’ve been eagerly waiting for the day to come ever since. Due to a shortage in ingredients (the Coronavirus outbreak has not made getting groceries easy), I haven’t been able to bake as much as I would like to lately. Flour has been especially low, and we’ve been saving it up so there would be enough for me to make this special dessert! Luckily, we were also able to get more flour in one of our recent grocery orders, so now we have plenty for future baking.

I don’t recall ever having carrot cake before now, so what made me crave it, I’m not really sure. The most likely answer is the magic of Pinterest. I could browse it for hours, just staring at all of the mouthwatering recipes and food photos. When I discovered a carrot cake recipe, I knew I had to make it. It just looked so good!

Easter, I realized, was only a few weeks away. And so I waited…and waited…until finally, the day came!

Now, I tend to bake in the evenings, which has led to some mishaps. More times than I’d like to admit, I’ll start baking something too late and work on it far into the night before I finally have to give up and continue in the morning. It doesn’t help that I’m probably the slowest baker you’ll ever meet. (I have to check and re-check the recipe every few seconds for fear of messing something up…I can’t help it!) I guess this just goes to show that I would not make a great contestant on any of those baking shows.

Anyway, when I do finish a bake in time, it’s usually too dark outside to get any good photos! My mom is a photographer, but there’s not much she can do when there isn’t any light.

So this time, I was determined to start early, and finish during daylight.

The recipe was pretty simple. I mixed up the batter, making half of the original recipe. After all, there are only four of us in my family, and we can’t very well share the cake with anyone! So instead of using two 9-inch pans, I made mine in 6-inch pans. It came out as an adorable little cake!

This carrot cake is actually the first cake I’ve ever made (I’m not counting cheesecake). Frosting it was the hard part, so my mom helped me out a lot with that part! The good thing about carrot cake is that the frosting doesn’t have to be perfectly smooth. And it definitely helped to cover the outside in crushed pecans.

Onto the matter of taste! Like I said, I was looking forward to this for a long time, and I was not disappointed! The cake itself was incredibly moist, and not too sweet, balanced out perfectly with the slightly tangy cream cheese frosting. I found myself longing for more as soon as I finished the last bite. This is definitely a recipe I would love to make (and eat!) again.

If you’d like to try the recipe for yourself, here’s a link! https://www.livewellbakeoften.com/the-best-carrot-cake-recipe/

Ginger was getting curious about the cake! Don’t get any ideas!

I hope that you all had a lovely Easter! Stay healthy and safe!

Categories
Misc.

Irish Apple Cake

We’ve never really been huge celebrators of St. Patrick’s Day, but with everything closed due to coronavirus and little else to do, I figured it would be fun to bake something. My mom suggested that I make something green, but with our currently limited ingredients I didn’t have many options. Instead, I decided to look for desserts that actually originated from Ireland, and I found this lovely apple cake!

 

 

 

 

 

The original cake recipe made enough for twelve servings–but since it’s only the four of us, I just made half. This turned out to be plenty; we each ate a piece and still have four left.

Making the cake itself was pretty simple. At first, I was a little concerned because the batter was so thick, but I was relieved to find that that’s actually how it’s supposed to be. Irish apple cake is very dense, with a texture quite similar to banana bread. In fact, it has a lot of similarities to banana bread, such as its moistness and subtler taste (as opposed to the more intense sweetness of a regular cake).

 

 

 

 

 

Traditionally, the cake would also be served with a creamy custard sauce drizzled over the top. When making the sauce, you have to combine hot milk with eggs, which is always risky because there’s a chance of accidentally cooking the eggs.

The custard came out a little curdled this time, but it was getting late and I didn’t really want to remake it, so I put it on anyway.  I’m sure that next time, when I’m not faced with a shortage of time and ingredients, it will turn out better. While it wasn’t the smoothest it could be, it still tasted perfectly fine, and served as a nice compliment to the cake.

We all enjoyed this dessert, and agreed that it was a fun and tasty treat to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with! If you’re interested in trying it out, here’s a link to the recipe: https://www.cookingclassy.com/irish-apple-cake-custard-sauce/

Hope you’re all staying safe and healthy!

Categories
Traditional Artwork

DeviantArt Holiday Card Project 2019

Front of the card
Inside the card

DeviantArt is encouraging artists to design holiday cards, which they will distribute to people in hospitals during the holiday season. I thought it sounded like a nice thing to do and thought I’d participate. I’ve been wanting to do calligraphy for a while, but this is one of the first times I’ve actually tried it.

The front of the card was done with a micron pen, which was a little hard to work with (for this purpose). Inside, I switched to a brush pen, which made the writing a lot easier. The lettering inside is a little bit crooked, but I don’t think it’s too distracting. Overall, I think it looks pretty good.

If you want to check out the program, here’s a link to the informational page: https://www.deviantart.com/team/journal/Holiday-Card-Project-2019-817011696

I think it’s a great program, and it’s definitely worth doing!

Categories
Traditional Artwork

Don’t eat that

Happy Valentine’s Day!