Second best thing I made this year: wedding cake

In November, my girlfriend Kayla got married. I made her cake.

The cake, hydrangead.

The cake, pre-hydrangea.

It was a standard carrot cake, made with the tried and true recipe which I've shared with you before. This one, however, was made with Trader Joe's gluten-free flour. It made no discernible difference in the taste, the layers just baked a bit flatter. Which is preferable when you're frosting a massive cake.

The bottom tier was a 3-layer, 9-inch cake. The top tier was 3-layers, 5 inches. I transported the tiers separately to the hotel where the reception would be held, inching my way over every speedbump and lamenting the cobblestones that line Washington Square.

It was a beautiful, delicious success. I hope that Kayla and Pat's marriage will be the same.

Club Sandwiches, Clementines, and Cake

I can't stop going to Tavern 109. The last time we started with calamari, which was presented in a way I've not seen before. It was gluten-free, which I don't care about but I know other people do, and which means that there wasn't a lot of heavy breading. The pieces of calamari were huge and it was tossed in a white wine sauce. I could make a meal of this and a nice little side salad.

Instead, I also ordered the world's biggest club sandwich and fries. It too some maneuvering to fit this in my mouth. I ate it for lunch for another two days (and, I should point out, I like a hearty lunch. To the point that my coworkers might be a little horrified.)

I love citrus fruits. All of 'em. A bag of clementines sits on my desk and I eat them all day long. One of my favorite snacks is to peel a few clementines, add them to a little fat-free plain Greek yogurt, then chop up a little dark chocolate and drizzle everything with olive oil.

My snacks are over the top.

When I manage to peel a clementine in one piece, I feel like I have really accomplished something.

A few weeks ago I celebrated the birthdays of two of my close friends. I made the cakes. On the right is a carrot cake with cream cheese frosting, covered in rainbow sprinkles in an homage to the birthday boy's status as one of my #1 Gays. 

On the left is my bff's birthday cake. She has a real thing for chocolate and, although she claims to "not like" cream cheese frosting, every time I give her this chocolate cream cheese frosting she spoons it into her mouth and professes "this frosting is the whip."

She seriously says that.

And then I go to her house and take iPhone pictures of the two of us at her wedding, because she won't send me any of the pictures. I'm still hoping for my 30-year growth spurt.

Scenes from Early 2013

I made German Chocolate cupcakes for my boss's birthday. I know what side my bread is buttered on.

Housa, hash browns, and wheat toast at The Brunch House. 

Spinach salad from Holiday Market in Royal Oak. 

Dehydrated peanut butter- excellent for making smoothies with less fat. 

Egg bagel, light cream cheese, lox, from New York Bagel in Ferndale.

Mini chocolate cheesecake and carrot cake cupcakes from The Cupcake Station in Birmingham. Don't waste your calories on these.

Carrot Cake

Ladies and gents, allow me to toot my own horn. I make the best carrot cake you've ever had. Since that cat left its bag, I've been making it more often as friends and family members request it. It doesn't taste like a carrot. It kind of tastes like a spice cake, actually. This is why you need a food processor, so the carrots can all get macerated and nobody will get a chunk meant for a salad.

This cream cheese frosting is killer. Every time I make it I end up sticking my head into the mixer bowl- honestly sticking my head into it to lick the sides. The last time I did this, my dad caught me with frosting on my forehead. I'm 29 years old.

I'm not going to lie to you, shredding the carrots isn't fun. I wash six or seven big carrots and dry them. I don't peel them, because it doesn't make any difference. They're fine. I feed them into the food processor one by one until they are all mulched into carrot meal. I do this before I start anything else, because it's so boring and I hate doing it.

This recipe makes a BIG three-layer cake, but can also be used for cupcakes. The last time I made cupcakes I did two dozen, plus a loaf of cake. All in all, this recipe makes a lot of baked goods, which is lucky because people are going to go crazy over these babies.

2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
3/4 tsp ginger
1.5 cups sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
4 eggs
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
3 cups finely grated carrots
1 cup chopped pecans, raisins, pineapple, whatever- if you like that sort of thing. I don't.

FIRST- prepare your pans. If you're making  a layer cake, grease three 9-inch round pans, line with parchment, grease that too. I'm waiting for the wonderful day when you can buy 9-inch round circles of parchment paper, pre-cut.

Then put the oven racks in the top and bottom third of the oven, preheat to 325.

Combine flour, BP, BS, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger- wisk well. In a separate bowl beat the sugar and oil until combined. Add eggs one at a time, beating well. Add applesauce. Add flour mixture, beat well. Add carrots and other accoutrements.

Divide the batter into the pans and bake, rotating between the racks once or twice, until it passes the toothpick test. About 35-45 minutes. If I'm doing cupcakes, it's about 28 minutes.

Cream Cheese Frosting:
2 packages cream cheese, room temp
1 stick unsalted butter, room temp
2 1/4 cups powdered sugar
3 tsp vanilla
1 tsp lemon juice

Beat butter and cream cheese until smooth. Sift in powdered sugar (I never sift it, I just dump it in by quarter cup), beat on low speed until incorporated. Add vanilla and lemon juice, beat well to incorporate. It it's lumpy, keep beating on high. Stick your head in the bowl.

How sweet is that cupcake carrier, by the way? Christmas present from Mommy Dearest. There you have it. 

Red Cedar Grill

A few weeks ago, I took my future sister-in-law for manicures, pedicures, and lunch. She had never had a manicure or pedicure before, which blew me away, but she grew up on a farm (on a FARM!) so I will cut her some slack. The nail overhaul happened at Kiss Nails on Grand River at Hagadorn in East Lansing, which is my favorite nail salon. It's super clean, they do a great job, and the massage chairs are not kidding around. You could have muscle soreness the next day.

She had to go to work shortly after lunch, so we decided to hit Red Cedar Grill in Williamson for her convenience (and because I had a Groupon). I had been there once before, for dinner and drinks, but I have no recollection whatsoever what my entree was.

What I did remember, thankfully, was the roasted garlic appetizer. When the two of us sat down for lunch, I put an order in for this appetizer immediately and we never looked back. This app comes with two heads of garlic that have been roasted almost to sweetness, and although you have to wrestle the garlic out of its skin, it is totally worth it. The ciabatta bread is crunchy and buttery and awesome. I happen to despise most varieties of cheese and all varieties of roasted red peppers, so those went virtually untouched on the platter while H and I destroyed any chance of having non-offensive breath for the rest of the day.

The regular rolls and butter were ignored. The ciabatta smeared in garlic was our sole focus.

For her lunch, H ordered the macaroni and cheese with chicken. As previously mentioned, I am not a cheese person and I think mac and cheese is gross, but the chicken looked great and she said the dish was good. She was stuffed from the garlic-laden bread and took most of her lunch to go.

I had the chicken and provolone sandwich, at the suggestion of the waitress. I removed the provolone. The chicken was good, but the pesto was totally overpowering. Also, if I had been using my brain when I ordered, I would have realized that I wasn't going to want to eat a sandwich after scarfing down a loaf of ciabatta, and I would have gone with the meatloaf. Next time.

H wanted dessert and I didn't want to stand in her way, so we decided on the carrot cake. My strong critiques of carrot cake deserve an explanation- I make a bomb carrot cake. I don't really think that any restaurant's carrot cake can hold a candle to what I make. I have always been disappointed with restaurant carrot cake.

Red Cedar Grill's cake was good, but what makes it really stand out is the SIZE of that thing! They give you, literally, a small cake. It could easily provide dessert for five people. The frosting was ok, the cake was moist, but didn't knock my socks off. The golden raisins were a nice touch.

We had about 3/4 of the dessert left, so H packed that up too. Red Cedar Grill- good, if you are heading out to Williamston and you want the garlic appetizer. I bet their dinner selections are better than their lunch. Not my favorite, but not bad.