baby stuff is cute

I think I'm pretty much over the sinking carrot cake.  I still feel a little twinge every time I look at it, but then I eat a piece and it's tasty and I feel better.

Plus, I constantly reassure myself that there are some things I do reasonably well. :)

Onward and upward! 

Last month, some friends of mine welcomed their first child into the world, a baby girl.  For those of you who don't know me, I have three nephews, so baby girls are almost completely unfamiliar to me.  I got really excited to knit baby girl stuff (of course, I don't actually knit things for my nephews so it's not like I was overloaded on boy stuff either.  Basically, I wanted an excuse to make a little dress.  Also, I should confess that I pretty much only made socks when I lived in Boston so baby girls born during that time got shafted.  I'm not proud). 

While out and about a few weeks ago in Howell I purchased a magazine with an adorable baby dress pattern and some fantastic cranberry yarn (yes, I'm saying cranberry instead of hot pink.  Cranberry is for babies, hot pink is for flamingos.  Don't try to understand my thought processes).

This is the dress in the magazine (sized for a 2 year old):

a photo of a photo, hence the glare.  The magazine is

debbie bliss spring/summer 2010 and the dress is

"Sun Dress"

This is the dress I made (sized for a 6 month old):

I know, the top looks teeny tiny, but I followed the directions 

and I swear that's what it's meant to look like.

Also, the color is much better in person. A photographer I'm not.

Clearly, I didn't completely follow the directions:  I knit the thing in the round (as sewing is for suckers), I obviously used different yarn that what was called for (I used Berroco Comfort DK) and I added a little ribbon to the pocket because I thought it gave it a little something extra.  

For the record: any dress with a pocket is automatically 24% cuter than a dress without one.  It's science, and you can't argue with science.

well, I tried

Tomorrow marks the occasion of my mother's 60th birthday (I'm pretty sure she won't be upset about me calling her out like that).  Her favorite kind of cake is carrot cake, and I thought I'd try my hand at making it.  Her best friend (my godmother) makes a DELICIOUS carrot cake, and I got the recipe from her daughter.  I figured, I can read and generally follow directions, I should be able to handle this!

Well.


Yea.

The first part of the process was to prepare the 'carrot' part of the carrot cake.  Turns out this is not a task for the faint of heart.  My hands will never be the same:

My biggest achievement for the day.

Of course, when my mom got home and was asking me about it she said "did you use the food processor?"  Well, of course not.  The recipe said GRATED, so I grated it!  With an antique vegetable peeler.  Is a food processor an option here?  If it is, please feel free to lie to me to make me feel like I didn't waste 45 minutes of my day grating 2 cups of carrots.

Once I got the carrot shavings taken care of, it came time to mix the ingredients.  That went reasonably well until it started to get thick and I ended up with carrot cake batter all over the kitchen.  Oops.  Anyway, into the oven it went for an hour.  At 45 minutes it was looking beautiful and perfect, and at one hour it looked like this:

I choose to blame the birthday girl for this, she opened the oven door while it was baking. :)

Yep, it sank in the middle.  This made me very sad.  The issue is that I haven't quite learned my parents' oven yet, so I'm still a little off on the times.  I should have taken it out of the oven at about 50 minutes or so.  Foiled again!

I consoled myself with making the cream cheese frosting.  It's hard to feel bad when you're making the most delicious kind of frosting there is.  Mostly because you get to taste test while you're stirring:

 Cream cheese + powdered sugar, butter & vanilla = heavenly

I managed to fudge the final product a little bit by covering the hole with frosting and pecans, so here's the end product:

I forgot to mix the pecans INTO the frosting, so instead I used them to TOP the frosting.

It tasted ok, but the edges were pretty crispy.  Alas.  My hands were also orange for the greater part of my day.
 

The moral of the story is: I tip my cap to you, carrot cake makers of the world!  I'm not sure I'd do it again.  At least, not until I find an easier way to grate carrots.