Mmm carrot cake....

Well, I say mmm.... but truth be told, I haven't actually tasted it yet. I'm hoping it's yummy. I seem to be on a bit of a baking mission of late, with limited success. You don't realise how much equipment you need to produce mouthwatering baked goods until you set out to do just that. A couple of weeks ago I decided to make my boyfriend a banana cake, so I looked up the recipe and set out to the shops to buy what I needed. It then slowly dawned on me that my tiny cupboard in the kitchen was substantially lacking in the utensil department. I had to not only buy eggs, flour, spices, milk, bananas etc etc... I also had to buy a loaf tin, mixing bowl, hand whisk and so on. The cake ended being a costly £15! Anyway, I lugged all my new purchases home and embarked on baking him the best banana cake ever, only to realise I'd forgotten to buy a sieve. Thank god I'd bought non-sift special sponge cake flour right? WRONG! Non-sift flour my ass... I get a phone call from my beloved the next day. I ask him how the cake is and he says "It's really nice..." there's this hanging BUT in his tone. "... but there's lumps in it." GAH! "But it's really really nice...." he kindly added rather hastily (thank god).

Anyway, today I had the cakey urge again so decided to make a carrot cake this time. The damn thing STILL cost me a tenner, as I had to not only buy a measuring jug (another thing I forgot last time), but carrots, oranges, vanilla, muscovado sugar, butter, icing sugar, more eggs, nutmeg (and they'd run out of the powdered stuff so I had to buy more expensive whole nutmegs)... and sods law, I spend 15 minutes in the queue waiting to pay for everything, hand over my cash and begin to walk out when I realise I forgot the damn sieve again! I went back in and scoured the kitchen department only to find the 80p sieves were sold out and there was only flashy stainless steel £6 sieves left. Yes, I want to make a lump free cake for my hunny, but no I am not making a lump free £16 carrot cake! So I decided to just make do and try very very hard to get rid of any stubborn chunks of flour.

Well, the cake is now baked and iced (which by the way took 20 minutes longer to bake than the recommended 40 minutes.... I'm assuming due to me baking it in a loaf tin instead of an 18cm square cake tin... another thing Tesco's didn't have... you'd think they'd be well stocked now it's a MEGA SUPER WE HAVE EVERYTHING UNDER THE SUN branch...) and I'm really really hoping it'll taste good... and be fully cooked in the middle... as I got impatient and worried the top would be charred to a crisp if I left it in any longer.... at least it LOOKS good (or is that my photography skills... you'll never know...)