Oven to Blog in 3.5 Minutes

While Bella was having her surgery today to get her tongue thing removed, I was at home taking care of the two invalids (Maggie and Zach). They both have stomach stuff and Maggie has bad headaches. On the bright side, there was a CSI: NY marathon of all new episodes on today. :) Anyway, I made some awesome carrot bread to help everyone feel better. I took it out of the oven, took a few pictures, sliced it up, took a few more pictures, and now I'm posting it: oven to blog in 3.5 minutes. This is kinda like banana bread, but it's made with carrots.

Carrot Bread

3 cups white flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons cinnamon
3 large eggs
2 cups castor (granulated) sugar
1 cup oil
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup milk
2 cups grated carrot
3/4 cup chopped walnuts or pecans (optional)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit or 175 degrees Celsius. In a large bowl, combine flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, and cinnamon. In another bowl, beat the eggs then add sugar, oil, vanilla, and milk. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix well. Fold in the carrot (which I recommend finely grating so that it will blend well with the batter) and the nuts if using. Bake at 350 or 175 for 40 to 50 minutes. Enjoy!

Andy

The Pune Farmer's Market and a Semi-Homemade Cake

For the past few months the Pune Farmer's Market has been held at the Westin, where I work. I have been wanting to go for a while, so today we went. There were a lot of cool booths and sellers there, but there were also quite a few restaurants there. For example, my mom and dad had a pizza while Zach had a chicken shwarma wrap. I had some lemon risotto and a spinach croissant. Here are a few pictures...

Green Tokri, a veggie seller

The Good Juicery, some seriously good stuff! 

My family

 

Some cool lights :)

Overall, it was really well done and I would highly recommend visiting. The next one hasn't been announced yet, but they are on facebook, https://www.facebook.com/PuneFarmersMarket, and there is an article on the Westin blog about it, http://www.westinpuneblog.com/2012/12/pune-farmers-market.html.

Now, to the baking.

This is a recipe using a store-bought cake mix that people will ask how you made it. You might call this Italiana Americano because it uses a traditional Sicilian cannoli filling recipe and a plain old chocolate cake mix. Anyhow, it is amazing.

Chocolate Cake with Ricotta Chocolate Chip Filling

1 Chocolate cake mix
1 1/2 cups ricotta cheese
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon lemon juice
1/4 to 1/2 cup mini chocolate chips, based on your love for chocolate

Prepare the cake mix as directed in 8" or 9" pans. Cool completely. For the filling, beat the ricotta and sugar until fluffy and then add the vanilla and lemon juice. Stir in the chocolate chips.

My layers, cooled of course :)

I would recommend making sort of a wall with buttercream so that the filling stays where it should. Of course, if you aren't icing the cake all over, it would be fine as is. 

Just dollop the filling on and smooth it out.

Once the layers are together, you could just sprinkle over some powdered sugar, or go the whole nine yards and ice the whole thing. :)

Here we are! As you can see, a few of pecans and two miniature Hershey bars definitely do the cake justice. 

And one more angle for good measure. :p

Adding a filling to a cake mix really is easy and delicious. For the buttercream I just made plain buttercream (see recent post) and added about 1/3 cup cocoa for chocolately goodness. Also, if you want to substitute some of the ricotta cheese for cream cheese, that would be fine. I wouldn't do more than half and half, or you will lose that ricotta flavor. 

Andy