Beachy Sunday

*start of Hawaiian music*.... Aloha!

 So on the agenda today:

Birthdays!

The surprise/recipe!!!

Puppies/UNC-CH

Yesterday

Answering some questions.

Happy Birthday Momma!

For her birthday, I made this beautiful Carrot Cake:

And Flowers:

And we gave her Kelly Clarkson Tickets (well, it was more of a present to all of us!):

Now for what everyone has been asking for: the recipe. This Carrot Cake is by far the best we have ever had. Made all from scratch, it was light, moist, and flavorful.

Ingredients:

Cake:

6 cups grated carrots 1 cup brown sugar 1 cup raisins 4 eggs 1 1/2 cups white sugar 1 cup vegetable oil 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 cup crushed pineapple, drained 3 cups all-purpose flour 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda 1 teaspoon salt 4 teaspoons ground cinnamon 1 cup chopped walnuts

Icing:

8 oz. of cold cream cheese

5 Tbsp. cold butter

2 tsp. vanilla

2 c. powder sugar

Decorations:

Graham cracker crumbs

blue food coloring

fondant

cocktail umbrellas

Instructions:

1. In a medium bowl, combine grated carrots and brown sugar. In hot water, add raisins to soak. Squeeze juice out of pineapple. Set everything aside for 60 minutes. After, drain raisins and then stir raisins in carrot mixture.

2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour two 8 inch cake pans and 12 cupcake liners (one pan)

3. In a large bowl, beat eggs until light. Gradually beat in the white sugar, oil and vanilla. Stir in the pineapple. Combine the flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon, stir into the wet mixture until absorbed. Finally stir in the carrot mixture and the walnuts. Pour evenly into the prepared pans.

4. Bake 8 in rounds for 45 to 50 minutes in the preheated oven and cupcakes for 20 min, until cake tests done with a toothpick. Cool for 10 minutes before removing from pan. When completely cooled, frost with cream cheese frosting.

Icing instructions: 

Beat 8 oz. cold cream cheese (not rock solid, but it means you can use it straight out of the refrigerator) with butter and 2 tsp. vanilla until combined. Gradually add powder sugar that has been sifted after measuring. Continue to add more sifted powdered sugar until you reach a consistency and sweetness that fits your taste.

(I did not sift my sugar and I doubled the recipe because I did pipping. It came out perfect).

Now, at dinner, BJ, my grandma's dog, decided he wanted to sit at the table too. So, he jumped up on the chair and joined us.

Sophie got her cone off!!! And Chris, my dad's friend, gave me the cutest UNC-CH gift, a money chocolate bar. Needless to say, Sophie knows what's good, and is a Duke Fan. She attempted to eat/tear-up my bar.

Yesterday, Marissa had to leave, but not before we got ice cream and exchanged Christmas gifts.

We have the cutest gifts.

Addressing some questions regarding how to comment on the blog:

On the home page, you can see all of my posts. But if you wish to "comment", you have to click on the title of my post (in this case it is "Beachy Sunday") which is a hyperlink and will allow you to comment on the bottom. For mobile views, comments sometimes go through and sometimes don't. I hope this answer questions.

Have a great start to your week and bye for now,

Brittany