Ulla and the Carrot Cake

For the past two months, I’ve done nothing but post about cookies. Lovely cookies. And when you post about them, you also eat them. A lot of them. And while I am in full support of a strapping viking girl, I am not too keen on a round strapping viking girl. No, it’s time I explore a healthy alternative.

It’s okay, my husband was sad too.

But guess what? We have an excellent excuse to try something new. Ulla got a new outfit! It’s a shredder/slicer attachment. She’s loving the versatility, and the silver brings out her voluptuous curves. My mother had one of these attachments for her KitchenAid mixer when I was growing up. And you should know, I didn’t realize you could grate cheese any other way until I got to college.

It attaches right to her nose. Classy, asymmetrical lines. Subtle v-neck. Excellent choice to minimize the size of her belly.

So what should we grate? Cheese? Boring. Let’s try something healthy since we’re trying to avoid cookies. Carrots? Yes. Good idea. Plus Brandon just bought a multiple pound bag of carrots from Costco. I like carrots, but I don’t like them that much.

All you gotta do is drop them in the top and then push down on the handles.

Shredded carrots magically appear and spill out into a strategically placed bowl. Neat, isn’t it? Possibly my favorite birthday present this year.

So we have the shredded carrots. Now what should we do? We got to do something a little more healthy than cookies. Otherwise my sister will call me again and ask what I do with all the sweets. And I can only blame Brandon for so long. Wait! I know. Let’s look at Cooking Light. They’ll have something sweet and healthy. Yes, good idea.

Look, here’s a recipe. Carrot Sheet Cake with Creme Cheese Frosting. That sounds delish. Plus I may or may not have a secret love affair with carrot cake right now. What do we need?

For the cake:

• 9  tablespoons  butter
• 2/3  cup  brown sugar
• 1/2  cup  sugar
• 2  eggs
• 2  egg whites
• 2  teaspoons  vanilla
• 2  cups flour
• 2  teaspoons  baking soda
• 1  teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4  teaspoon salt
• 3/4  cup  buttermilk
• 2  cups  shredded carrot

Yes, we can do that. Shredded carrots? Check! What about the frosting?

• 1/2  cup fat-free cream cheese
• 1/4  cup  butter
• 2  teaspoons  vanilla
• 1/8  teaspoon  salt
• 2 3/4  cups  powdered sugar

Well sure. Let’s try it. After all, one serving is only 306 calories. That’s healthy, right? And it has carrots. The more cake we eat, the better our vision.

We start with the basics. Butter. Sugar. Brown sugar. Whip it. Whip it good. As in really blended. Ulla worked up a sweat with how long I let her go at it.

But let’s not just twiddle our thumbs while she does all the work. Another bowl—that’s what we need. So we’ll lump the flour and the salt and the soda and the cinnamon together. My teaspoon of cinnamon may or may not have been heaping. It’s difficult to say. It’s probably a good idea for us to use a whisk to blend it. Although I’m not sure it makes a difference. But how often do you get to whisk? Whisks. Whisks. I like the way that rolls off my tongue. Say it with me: “whisks.”

When Ulla’s ready, we’ll start dropping the eggs into her belly. One at a time, to make sure each one gets a fair turn.

Don’t forget that two of the eggs should be whites only. But wait—isn’t this the month we celebrate unity? And we’re separating our eggs? Somethings not right about this.

VANILLA! And I capitalize it because we’re adding not one teaspoon, but two. TWO! It’s a party now.

So here comes the fun part. We’ll add the flour slowly. And we’ll take the same picture we take every time we add flour. And it won’t get old because the flour will look like a waterfall. And we’ll like it.

Buttermilk? Why yes. I learned a long time ago that it makes sheet cakes (or any other cakes) more moist than it’s less spoiled aged counterpart: milk. At this point we’re supposed to alternate between the flour mixture and the buttermilk. Back and forth, back and forth. Honestly, I just think they tell you to do this to make more work.

Our batter will look pretty much like this. Fluffy. Sweet. Light.

And then we’ll make it healthy with our heaping gobs of carroty goodness.

Which we will then pour into a well-greased 9×13 baking pan. Doesn’t this look exactly like something you’d want to eat? Doesn’t it? Looks a little sloppy to me. You know what it makes me think of?

“Please sir. I want some more.”

And guess what? We’re done. All we gotta do is spread it out in the pan. Usually I shake it down and pat it a bit so it evens out and gets rid of air bubbles. (Usually? I’ve never made it before. But if I did, this is what I’d usually do.) Then we’ll stick it in the oven at 350 for about 25 minutes or until it’s spongy and browned around the edges.

But wait! Don’t go yet. We gotta do the frosting. It’s super easy. Hard to mess up. We just plop the cream cheese, butter, vanilla, and salt back into Ulla’s belly. She whips it up for awhile until it’s nice and creamy.

Then we pour a little bit of powdered sugar in at a time.

Then we get really excited because it is turning out so silky, so smooth. And it’s really cream cheesy. Carrot cake is the only time I like cream cheese. It looks kinda like this.

Right about now is when we would read the recipe for the 1,402 time and realize that we need about another 3/4 cup of powdered sugar in the frosting to finish it off. So we go to the container and discover we don’t have quite enough. No problem. Let’s look in the fridge. No? What about behind the cheese? Did you check the top shelf? Maybe there’s more in the pantry. We can’t be out. Right? RIGHT? We’re out of powdered sugar?! What? What do we do?

So then we turn to our handsome Italian husband who knows his way blindfolded around the kitchen.

“Bran? We’re out of powdered sugar. What do I do?”

Long pause. “Hmm?” He’s playing video games. Call of Duty. Very engaging.

“I’m out of powdered sugar. Can I just use regular sugar instead?”

“Um, yea.”

So we think it’s okay and realize too late that using granulated sugar instead of powdered sugar makes our frosting grainy and gritty. No longer frosting worth eating. But our husband? He asks us 5 minutes later why we added regular sugar to the frosting. And our eyes bug out and we get cranky because we realize that he was not listening to our powdered sugar plight while playing dumb video games and wouldn’t have actually told us to use regular sugar if he was paying attention.

Sigh.

Don’t do this.

Okay. Okay. Let’s finish up. The cake will look like this. Minus the hole in the middle. We must have gotten a little carried away with our toothpick. No matter.

And the finished product? Once it cools off? Is amazingly moist. Good flavor. Fresh because we shredded our own carrots. Oh, and it’s healthy too. Because it has carrots. And carrots are healthy.