carrot cake

We celebrated a birthday in the house recently and the chosen cake was carrot. I was pleased with this choice because I've been craving carrot cake for months now but the husband doesn't like it. When there's only two of you in the house you have to make sure that both of you are going to enjoy it - otherwise there's an unequal gaining of weight and that's just not fair. Sadly, that isn't an issue anymore.

I adapted Alton Brown's carrot cake recipe and it turned out fabulously. The cake itself is very dense and I really like that it wasn't too sweet. I upped the spices and switched vanilla bean for the extract in the icing recipe - both great decisions.

The recipe makes just enough for one 9 inch round cake and the right amount of icing to cover it. If you want to do a two-layer cake I'd suggest doubling both recipes.

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Almond Cakes

When TA and I went to DC for New Years we had the chance to dine at Tenh Penh with the MiL and sFiL. While the service could have used a little polishing, the food was particularly delicious. At the end of the meal, in lieu of the traditional fortune cookie, four gorgeous little cakes were dropped off at the table.

They were about the size of a half dollar and smelled gloriously of almonds. They were chewy and dense and sweet and ridiculously delicious. TA and I are both fans of Asian cuisine, especially any sweets made with mochiko, a glutinous rice flour.

First attempt - not enough liquid, too puffy, and not enough sugar or almond extract.I decided right then and there that I absolutely had to try and make these at home and after two failed attempts I finally succeeded. Although these would be even better if I had a mini-muffin pan, they are nevertheless satisfying.

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Lemon-Vanilla Bean & Berry Tarts

No 4th of July BBQ is complete without a tasty dessert, and the combination of lemon French yogurt cake, vanilla bean pastry cream, and fresh berries is hard to beat.

The handy thing about garnishing cute little individual tarts with fresh berries is that they are amazingly beautiful and look like you slaved in the kitchen for hours to complete - which is rarely ever the case. That being said, I'm ever the fan of delicious eats that look impressive and are in actuality so easy a trained chimp could make them.

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