Not my Grandma Struck's Carrot Cake

I love desserts. I love sweets. This is not something that is new. But, for as long as I can remember, I have been haunted by the idea of carrot cake. Just hearing the words "carrot cake" conjured up awful memories of my Grandma Struck's version of the dessert. (Before I continue with the story, I need to make a disclaimer. My Grandma Struck made a ton of delicious things that I absolutely loved, but these were not one of them.) My Grandma Struck's carrot cake was full of giant, huge chunks of carrots and an overabundance of nutmeg and cloves. I thought it was the most disgusting dessert ever, and because of that, I have not eaten anyin my 20 years upon this earth. However, while talking to my mom one day (how we got to talking about carrot cake is beyond me,) she mentioned that my Grandma Graham used to make carrot cake with baby food carrots, so the chunks of real carrots would not present an issue to me. I am awful when it comes to textures of food, and the reason for me not liking a lot of foods is because of the texture. I decided to try making carrot cake with baby food and see if my problem with carrot cake was indeed the texture of Grandma Struck's, or if I just thought they were plain disgusting. Upon tasting the batter before pouring it into the pan to bake (I am extremely guilty of doing this before baking, but if I was going to die of salmonella I would be dead by now so I don't think it's as big of a deal as people try to make it seem) things were not looking good for this carrot cake. The taste was overwhelmingly carrot-y (not sure that is a word, but it's my blog so I do what I want.) I figured that my mom and sister would eat them, and I could find some friends that would take them off of my hands if I ended up not liking them. We baked them and frosted them with cream cheese frosting, and Mom loved them. I stole a corner of hers because I did not want to take a whole bar if I was going to find them utterly disgusting, but they were actually pretty good. The only spice I put in was cinnamon, and I think it could have been a little bit more. The carrot taste baked out overall, and it is a more subtle carrot flavor that works well with the cinnamon. So the verdict is in: it was indeed the unpleasant texture of my Grandma Struck's carrot cake that had turned me off on this dessert for most of my life. One Pinterest recipe down for the summer, a lot more to go.
Recipe Link: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/carrot-cake-bars

Stay classy!

Crocheting Update

As I am sitting here reading through my blogs from last summer, I ran across the entry where I told you all I was starting my first afghan project. This is an extremely overdue update, but I have since FINISHED that afghan! I finished my Mile a Minute afghan on New Year's Day. For me, it was more like a Mile a Month, but I digress. Making that afghan has corrupted me for the better, because now all I want to do is crochet afghans. I am working on 2 other afghans currently, a shell afghan that is a similar pattern to an afghan my Grandma Inez made me before she passed away, and the other is a Granny Square afghan that I hope will fit a queen sized bed when I am done. My goal for the summer is to finish my Granny Square afghan. The other one is worked as one piece and it gets really hot and humid in Iowa in the summer, so I will not work on that as much. Granny squares also take about 20 minutes to make a piece, so I can get a lot more of them done when I sit down to watch an hour long TV program or a movie. So, without further ado, my very first afghan!

Here is the picture my mom posted of me after I finished my afghan. No doubt she was pretty proud that I finally figured out to make something besides Hipster hats and scarves.

This is my afghan all laid out. The panels were done in four  steps: the inside shells, the first green border, a white border, and a final green border. After completing that with all nine panels, I whip-stitched them together

This is the book my afghan pattern came from (I never post photos of my projects without a link to the pattern it came from.) Mom bought this book at Walmart a few years back, and I have taken it hostage from her. There are several other patterns in this book I would like to try, but some of them are still a little difficult for someone who has only been crocheting about a year and a half. I also need to finish my other two before I embark on another one!

I plan on doing lots of crocheting and other crafting projects this summer, so stay tuned to see what I am making. I also plan on baking a lot of the recipes that are sitting on my Pinterest boards, so I will blog about those as well (the good ones AND  the bad ones.) 

Stay classy readers!