Zlena will buy, buy, buy :D I think baking cakes are my thing. I like to make cakes, I don't know why really cos it's always a laboring endeavour for me and my hodge-podge kitchen. Like, I have to bake with a convection cooker - it's not ideal but it gets the job done. Side note, that convection oven is "da bomb"!
So I had a box of Betty Crockers carrot cake mix that I had gotten some time ago which was reduced to clear. Last weekend, when I also forayed into the spinach mozzarella parcels, I also decided to make the cake. Okay, actually, I made the cake first, then decided I couldn't simply eat just cake (am not Marie Antoinette, just saying, hehehe) and had to make something substantial for my tummy.
Anywho, when I made plans to bake the carrot cake, I had very lofty ambitions. I was finally going to try to make my own frosting. I figured some buttercream frosting wold go well with the carrot cake. When I googled "best frosting for carrot cake", it came back overwhelmingly in favour of cream cheese frosting. Nevermind, I wasn't fixed on that buttercream anyway. And as luck wold have it, I had recently brought back a huge tube of cream cheese from Homeland so it's not like my whole cream cheese frosting making plans were scuppered.
So with much excitement and a recipe to follow, I went to work in my kitchen. Did the cake first and foremost. That of course was the easy part. Read back of box and follow instructions to the tee. Once I set the first cake pan to bake, I started to look at the recipe for the frosting. That's when I noticed, hmmm, I need powdered sugar. AKA icing sugar. Someting I had been so confident was in my larder. About 15 minutes of intense searching (and some cursing later), I came to admit defeat, I definitely did not have any icing sugar. I really could have sworn.....
Undeterred, I brought up Google - I'm just going to outright call it and say Google is my bestest friend, rarely lets me down in my time of need. "Frosting using granulated sugar" typed in the search bar and I don't even press "Enter" and results aplenty. Haha! All is not lost, there was a way to make frosting with normal, white sugar! This is how.
So I'm thinking, all is well, where's that bottle of white sugar I have lying around somewhere? Then, like a flashback reel, I remember seeing myself throw an empty packet of white sugar into the kitchen bin - I had used up the last of my white, granulated sugar when I was making my homemade caramel sauce. I did utter a "F@#K!" in frustration. I guess I'm a really angry baker, hehehe. Just as I'm about to google making frosting with brown sugar and rueing the aesthetics of such an endeavour, I also realized that i don't even have plain brown sugar, I turned it all into cinnamon sugar the night before! I've gone through the recipe halfway and I was damned if I was going to give up - I had neighbours, I will call one of 'em and ask to borrow a cup of sugar like you see on TV. Just as I was preparing to call, I suddenly recalled, the last vestiges of white sugar I had kept in my drinking nook in the living room - it's for my coffee and tea, just fyi. I run to get it, and yes, it's still 3/4 full - just enough for my 1 cup of sugar needed for the recipe. And after what I'm now gonna term as "Zlena's Hijinks in Homemade Frosting".....
.JPG)
And I'll insert some cake frosting pics here.....
Doing the center frosting for my 2-layer cake
Both halves stacked after center frosting done. Yeah, there's a fissure in the middle there, I see it.
Freshly frosted cake
Final product, shared half of it with my neighbours above and the rest I ate throughout the week. It's no wonder I'm chubby in the face right now :p
I have to say, this is actually my first time eating carrot cake. Okay, the first time that I can recall. It's actually really delicious, just sweet enough. Also, when i normally use store bought frosting, I always find them tooth-achingly sweet. Making my own frosting rendered the perfect balance of cream cheese and sweetness that you won't get when using store bought frosting. Plus, you still have tons that you can keep to use for the next baking project :)
So I had a box of Betty Crockers carrot cake mix that I had gotten some time ago which was reduced to clear. Last weekend, when I also forayed into the spinach mozzarella parcels, I also decided to make the cake. Okay, actually, I made the cake first, then decided I couldn't simply eat just cake (am not Marie Antoinette, just saying, hehehe) and had to make something substantial for my tummy.
Anywho, when I made plans to bake the carrot cake, I had very lofty ambitions. I was finally going to try to make my own frosting. I figured some buttercream frosting wold go well with the carrot cake. When I googled "best frosting for carrot cake", it came back overwhelmingly in favour of cream cheese frosting. Nevermind, I wasn't fixed on that buttercream anyway. And as luck wold have it, I had recently brought back a huge tube of cream cheese from Homeland so it's not like my whole cream cheese frosting making plans were scuppered.
So with much excitement and a recipe to follow, I went to work in my kitchen. Did the cake first and foremost. That of course was the easy part. Read back of box and follow instructions to the tee. Once I set the first cake pan to bake, I started to look at the recipe for the frosting. That's when I noticed, hmmm, I need powdered sugar. AKA icing sugar. Someting I had been so confident was in my larder. About 15 minutes of intense searching (and some cursing later), I came to admit defeat, I definitely did not have any icing sugar. I really could have sworn.....
Undeterred, I brought up Google - I'm just going to outright call it and say Google is my bestest friend, rarely lets me down in my time of need. "Frosting using granulated sugar" typed in the search bar and I don't even press "Enter" and results aplenty. Haha! All is not lost, there was a way to make frosting with normal, white sugar! This is how.
So I'm thinking, all is well, where's that bottle of white sugar I have lying around somewhere? Then, like a flashback reel, I remember seeing myself throw an empty packet of white sugar into the kitchen bin - I had used up the last of my white, granulated sugar when I was making my homemade caramel sauce. I did utter a "F@#K!" in frustration. I guess I'm a really angry baker, hehehe. Just as I'm about to google making frosting with brown sugar and rueing the aesthetics of such an endeavour, I also realized that i don't even have plain brown sugar, I turned it all into cinnamon sugar the night before! I've gone through the recipe halfway and I was damned if I was going to give up - I had neighbours, I will call one of 'em and ask to borrow a cup of sugar like you see on TV. Just as I was preparing to call, I suddenly recalled, the last vestiges of white sugar I had kept in my drinking nook in the living room - it's for my coffee and tea, just fyi. I run to get it, and yes, it's still 3/4 full - just enough for my 1 cup of sugar needed for the recipe. And after what I'm now gonna term as "Zlena's Hijinks in Homemade Frosting".....
.JPG)
And I'll insert some cake frosting pics here.....
Doing the center frosting for my 2-layer cake
Both halves stacked after center frosting done. Yeah, there's a fissure in the middle there, I see it.
Freshly frosted cake
Final product, shared half of it with my neighbours above and the rest I ate throughout the week. It's no wonder I'm chubby in the face right now :p
I have to say, this is actually my first time eating carrot cake. Okay, the first time that I can recall. It's actually really delicious, just sweet enough. Also, when i normally use store bought frosting, I always find them tooth-achingly sweet. Making my own frosting rendered the perfect balance of cream cheese and sweetness that you won't get when using store bought frosting. Plus, you still have tons that you can keep to use for the next baking project :)
