I am trying as much as possible to gather inspiration for dishes to make and blog about from my day-to-day life. It is really surprising where ideas can pop up. For the most part I have been relying rather heavily on food memories. My dish idea for this week came from a very unlikely place. I went to a conference this week for work. One and a half days of my life was spent sitting on really uncomfortable plastic chairs and listening to an array of speakers, some good and some, well, let's just be honest here, some could put you to sleep and so shall remain nameless. Basically, it was a typical conference, that you would find in industries across the world.
Most of the time the best thing about going to a conference is you get to travel, but this one was held about 4 miles from my work. The best thing about this conference happened during the lunch time speaker on the last day right before the end of the conference. I was eating my turkey sandwhich and a salad, which were both pretty good but nothing amazing by any means when the person sitting across from me plopped down with massive slice of carrot cake. I ditched my half-eaten sandwhich and immediately went in search of this lovely cake, which I hadn't seen when I was walking through the buffet line to get my sandwhich 15 minutes ago. I really needed a slice of that cake, pronto. It was calling to me. I walked very quickly to the buffet room and it wasn't there!!! "Oh my God, was it gone already!!!" Walking back into the conference room, I ran my eyes over the room and found it (insert huge sigh of relief) tucked away in the very back corner of the room. "Oh my", the cake was moist and delicious but the frosting was pure heaven!!!
I left the conference knowing I had to find a recipe and make this cake at home. I had to find a good recipe, I have had very disappionting carrot cakes in the past. Sometime it is the frosting, sometimes the cake, sometimes both that can ruin this cake. The very worst carrot cake I ever had was one I made myself. I bought a just add oil and eggs box of carrot cake. As you can well imagine it was a disaster of epic proportions. I am pretty sure it was the artificially flavored carrot pieces that did this cake a massive injustice.
Carrot Cake modified from The Pioneer Woman
Ingredients:
2 cups Sugar
1 cup Vegetable Oil
4 whole Eggs
2 cups All-purpose Flour
½ teaspoons Salt
1 teaspoon Baking Soda
1 teaspoon Baking Powder
1 teaspoon Ground Cinnamon
2 cups Grated Carrots
1/2 cup crushed, well drained, pineapple
2 teaspoons vanilla
For Icing:
1 package (8 Oz) Cream Cheese
2 1/2 cups Powdered Sugar
2 teaspoons Vanilla
1 cup Pecans, Chopped Finely
Preparation Instructions:
Cake:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. In a large bowl mix together the eggs then add sugar until smooth. Add oil, vanilla and pineapple and beat until smooth.
3. In another bowl sift together flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda and cinnamon.
4. Add to the flour mixture to first mixture and beat until combined.
5. Add carrots and mix well.
6. Pour into a greased and floured 9 x 13 pan and bake 35-40 minutes until a toothpick come clean.
7. Allow the cake to cool completely before frosting.
Frosting:
1. In large bowl, mix butter and cream cheese
2. Add sugar and vanilla and blend
3. Chop the pecans until fine and fold into the frosting.
4. Spread over the carrot cake.
This is who I have always under foot when I am working in my kitchen. As you can see by my feet, this is my usual stance, lol! Little stinker. The leash is on him so I can grab him quickly. He can be really fast and apt to get into all sorts of trouble.
No comments:
Post a Comment