I Hate You, Beta Carotene.

Once upon a time, I was born.  I weighed more than a sack of potatoes and was the size of a toddler.  I was so big, in fact, that my mother's doctors said that she would probably hurt herself beyond repair if she did a natural birth. Needless to say, she opted for the C-Section.  So while she didn't necessarily birth me in the most conventional manner, she still brought me into this world.

Tangent: I found out that my mom ate a ridiculous amount of bacon while she was pregnant with me. Most of my questions about how I am today are answered by that.

I wouldn't be alive if it weren't for my mother. And seeing as how yesterday was her birthday I decided to do what I do best: bake. Okay, I'm not the best at baking. I just wanted to sound cool.  I think my greatest talent that I'm aware of is my uncanny ability to stare people down.  Moving on.

I chose to create a layer cake, of the carrot variety. Knowing that my mom enjoys this cake and doesn't get it that often fueled the inspiration.  I didn't know what I was getting into when I thought of this cake. Sure, whip up a cake batter, throw some cinnamon up in there, grate a carrot or two, bake, and frost.  Wrong.  Right, but wrong. I wish it was that easy.  Oh how mistaken I was. Let me take you on this journey, filled with evil carrots, tired triceps, not enough cream cheese and more.

This tale has a happy end, however. Long road ahead though.

So I found recipes online, I didn't feel like rummaging through all of my college things in the basement to find my go-to cookbook.  I have a recipe for cream cheese frosting that I've used forever because it tastes exactly like cheesecake. I crave it sometimes, when I'm feeling down and low. If you ever make it, you'll begin having those cravings too. If you don't, I'll find it hard to believe that you're an actual human; you have to be a robot.

The ratio for the frosting goes as follows:

1 [brick of cream cheese] : 1 [stick of unsalted butter] : 1/2 [tsp of vanilla extract] : 2 [cups of confectioner's sugar]

Need more? Double everything. Need less? Halve everything. It's that easy. You're welcome for the culinary firepower, make this frosting and you'll be a goddess/god/warlock/ruler-of-the-seven-seas.

I got the recipe for the cake online, and was careful to get it without anything added to it (I wasn't sure whether my mom liked raisins or walnuts in it, I decided to play it safe).  The first thing you had to do was combine 6 eggs with 3 cups of sugar.

"Make liquid sun" was probably a more accurate description.

In another bowl, sift 3 cups of flour, 3 tsp. of cinnamon, 3 tsp. of baking powder, 3 tsp. of baking soda, and 3/4 tsp. of salt.  Form a beautiful pillowy mountaintop of powder.

It was then that I looked over at the carrots.  The entire reason for this cake.  This recipe called for 4.5 cups of firmly packed, shredded carrots and I was ready for the challenge.  I could do 4.5 cups in my sleep, come on now.  Or so I thought.

I bought ten or so carrots, the biggest bunch they had.  I figured that I would just eat whatever carrots I had leftover.  Carrot sticks are the bomb, don't hate.  So peeled them all, just because I figured I'd get them all done in one session.  I peel vegetables like a champ, so much so that I would definitely win a contest.  I had all ten carrots peeled in about three minutes.  During those minutes, my mind drifted.

Tangent: Vegetable peelers really work well on vegetables and fruits.  Damn.  They literally get everything off.  Why can't razors be as efficient as peelers?  Seriously.  Was it just this peeler? No, I've used others before that were just as great.  I thought about using a vegetable peeler during my next attempted leg-shaving sesh, knowing that even a brand new razor wouldn't be able to get everything down.  Being of Dutch-Irish descent, leg hair grows in thicker than the hair on your head.  During attempts to shave said legs, it's like sending in someone to clear a forest with a pair of scissors.  Expect nothing and be ready to sacrifice your men.  Retreat is completely acceptable and oftentimes encouraged.  It is this discouragement that made me want to use a kitchen appliance to shave my legs.  Perhaps I was jealous of this carrot.  Jealous that it could so easily shed a layer off its orange body and start anew.  If I had that capability, I'd be ruling the world.  Unfortunately I am not a carrot, and do not have those luxuries.  My mind regains consciousness.

I set up my workstation and began grating.  I chopped each carrot in half and honed in on each arm muscle to make swift gliding motions.  It seems like hours pass by until the half-carrot is turned into shreds.  I look at the clock.  30 seconds.  I could tell this was going to be a harrowing journey.  Yet, I pressed forward.  Grasping the next half-carrot, I grated it to the stub.

I grated some more, at this point my arm was beginning to burn.  I could feel a slight whine in my tricep region.  I hushed it promptly, telling myself that grating carrots was not laborious.

I began to run out of breath.  What the what?  Who am I? I can't even grate freaking carrots without breaking a sweat?  I was pathetic.  I looked over at the dry and wet ingredients in two different bowls and decided to make them meet.  And by meet, I mean morph into one cohesive being.  I'm great.  My arm was hurting just a tad, so i decided to slowly fold in the dry ingredients into the bowl full of egg and sugar.  It started out fine, but as I added more and more flour it became thick.  And I'm not talking "Oh, Eve, it's just a cake batter calm down!" kind of thick.  Kids, I thought we had a bread dough on our hands.  I was nervous. Not to mention the pain in my arm escalated from the thick folding that I had to endure.

This is actually the thickest batter I've ever made.

I finished stirring the doom batter and looked to my left.  The carrots were waiting. Laughing, almost.  Orange bastards.  I carried on, out of breath and ashamed that carrots were defeating me.

I grated all of those damn carrots.  I grated them so finely, it looked like a food processor did it.  I measured out four cups, firmly freaking packed like the instructions demanded, and then ran out.  I had less carrots than I needed, and I was out.  Of course my sister wasn't willing to get any for me, so I decided that ten effing carrots was enough and called it quits.  I piled the carrots into a bowl to marvel at my handiwork.

Guys, that's a 2 qt. bowl for reference.

I had a lot of carrots.  More carrots than any man could eat in a month.  That's a lie, it would be pretty easy to eat ten carrots.  However, when they're shredded it looks like so much more.  I stop for a second to look at my life, and my eyes fall upon my right hand.  It was stained orange.  I looked back at the bowl of carrots accusingly.  And then I looked back at my hand.  In that moment, I felt like a guidette.  My hand did, at least.  My mind trailed off again.

Tangent: One morning I woke up and was flipping through the stations on TV.  Not really paying attention to most of the stuff on, I was intrigued by a movie on Syfy called "Jersey Shore Shark Attack." Now, I thought it was just going to be a stupid shark movie set on the Jersey Shore.  I didn't expect guidos and guidettes to be the ones trying to kill off the sharks.  Perhaps it was that I was still waking up, but as soon as I turned on the movie I was hooked.  Guys, I can't even describe this movie.  In fact, here's a trailer so you can truly understand this madness.




Some notable quotes from this movie:


[trying to lure in a shark to kill it with a firework]
"Anyone got any meat on them?"
[meaty guido pulls out a power bar]
"I got a protein bar!"
[disapproval from rest of guido pack]
"What?! Nothing can resist 25 grams of protein with chocolate peanut butter CRUNCH!"
[throws it into water, shark rejects power bar]


"Joey Fatone just got eaten by a shark."


"There are white-finned, killer albino sharks out there."


"This happened 25 years ago too, construction of the boardwalk created vibrations on the Earth's crust that attracted the albino sharks to the Shore. Your grandfather took a harpoon and shot the last shark in the left eye. Perfect shot."
"Why the left eye?"
"Because that's the devil's eye."


"Why is there blood on that boat?"
"No Nooki, that's probably spaghetti sauce. I know my grandpops can't go fishing without a little pasta, am I right?"


I hope that you watch this movie.  If you're down an low, this cinematic creation is bound to put you in good spirits.  I wish I could think of more quotes from the movie, they're endless.  Killer sharks brought me back to what was truly at hand at the moment.


I added the carrots into the bread dough, praying to every god in the book at the carrot juice would thin out the batter.  The praying worked: the batter was now just a little thicker than usual.

It looked kinda gross.

After that, I added 1.5 cups of vegetable oil and 1.5 tsp. of vanilla extract.  This was incredibly difficult to add in, as oil usually hates everything and refuses to work together.  I think it took me ten minutes just to freaking stir in oil.  If you decide to make this, please add the oil with the eggs and sugar.

Now that the batter is finally complete, grease and flour 9" cake pans. I only had two to work with, and this recipe yielded for a three-layer cake.

Fill the pans about 2/3 full with batter and toss in a 350 degree oven until everything's cooked.

If you did the greasing and flouring right, the cake should literally slide out of the pan.  That's the part that gets me most.  If you didn't grease your pan a lot, you cake could stick and when you go to flip it, the entire thing will crumble. Not so good.  And considering how hard I worked on this cake already, I began my praying as usual.

Bless Jesus.

I rinsed, cooled, greased, and floured another pan and made the third cake.  Everything went swimmingly with that one as well.  I made the frosting while the cakes were baking, and popped it in the fridge because it started to melt.  My parents refuse to get air conditioning, so my baking tends to happen in a very very hot kitchen.  Take your first cake and throw some frosting on top.

Spread it around evenly.

Put on another cake and repeat until you have a club sandwich, but with cake as bread and frosting as the turkey, lettuce, bacon, tomato, and mayo.

Here comes the challenge.  Frost the entire thing.  My frosting was getting soft again, but at this point I was pretty much done with my life and any effort to have this look beautiful.  In retrospect, I should've piped frosting the edges between the cake to make it even, but I just spread the frosting around, hoping that my aggressive spreading would give the illusion of evenness.

I tried my best. I threw the cake in the fridge until the next morning and piped on some words before leaving for work.  I butchered the last one, by the way the Moo is intentional. It's a nickname we all have for the woman.

She really liked the cake, I suppose her happiness made it worthwhile.  The cake itself was actually really good - dense, moist, everything a carrot cake should be.  It also looked really nice when you cut into it.

I would like to conclude with this: If someone ever makes you a carrot cake from scratch, please hold onto them forever. I would only make this cake again for a small number of people.  It's an unspoken way of saying that the person making the cake truly loves you.  If you only learn one thing from this post, let it be that.


I would also like the mention that when I was cleaning up after everything was said and done, I looked up and saw an effing food processor.  I could have just thrown all the carrots in at once and saved myself a world of pain.

Oh life. Always throwing me curveballs.