Domestic Anti-Goddess:: The Carrot Cake

A number of my extended family are descending on the Isle of Skye this weekend or rather, are already on the Isle of Skye but Mr Kapow and I plus my sister Kath Kapow and her boyfriend Dave will be joining them tomorrow for the weekend.  Dave's actually from Skye so he's more going home than away for the weekend and well, actually, my blog's pretty much scheduled for a week in advance so by the time you read this it will have been at least last weekend if not the one before!

If you're still with me, my dear Auntie Christine was an English teacher in Germany 'back in the day' where she became friends with a tremendous lady called Irma and they've been the best of friends for years and years and years.  Irma and her husband Gerd have a daughter Leonie who is a few months older than me and my cousin Emma.  They used to come and visit us on the Isle of Seil roughly every second Summer with Irma's sister Ursula and her boys Moritz and Johannes, and stay at my uncle's holiday chalets next to my parents' farm.  Back in those days my Granny was still alive and she lived in the next village so Seil was very much the epicentre of my family (the MacKapow side anyway).  Needless to say, 'The Germans*' became very much like part of the family. 

*We're not supposed to call them 'The Germans' but sadly it's a habit we find quite hard to shake and is meant with the deepest affection!

So anyway, what's this got to do with a flippin carrot cake?!  Well, the thing is Mr Kapow and I are a bit low on cash right now and while there's room in the rented holiday accommodation for us, we didn't want to turn up empty handed but didn't have any money to bring a whole lotta supplies.

"I shall make a cake!"  I exclaimed to Mr Kapow!  "I have this here Hummingbird Bakery book, what better gift than a home baked one!"  I have made the lemon cupcakes from this book a few times before with good success so I decided I would make them plus a real cake sized cake.  Carrot?  Yes!  Carrot!

Ok, then I forgot I was going to bake a cake until it was about 8 o'clock whereupon I composed a list of required ingredients and rushed off accross the road to Morrisons with Mr Kapow in tow (trying to get me to buy him sweeties I suspect!).

I got home and by the time I was ready to start it was almost 9 o'clock. 

Right!  What does it say then?  "...preheat bla bla...Gas 3..bla...put sugar, eggs and oil in a freestanding electric mixer with paddle attachment".  Ok!  I have a bowl, that'll do...get the sugar out of the cupboard - what kind of sugar?  Uh...300g soft light brown.  Right, don't have any of that. 

"What do you mean?!  We've just been to the shop!"  exclaims Mr Kapow!  "I thought you wrote a list!"  I did write a list.

  I phone my mum, "Mum, I'm baking a cake right, and I have all of the ingredients ("That's a lie!"  bellows Mr K from the other side of the room) except the recipe says 300g soft light brown sugar and I only have 100g of light muscovado sugar, will that do?" Mum doesn't know but she does tell me the rather exciting news that she's on the front page of The Oban Times and in several National papers having found a "Monster Egg" in her hen house!  "Right Mum, what I'm going to do is put in 100g of muscovado and the rest caster sugar" I say.  Mum agrees that this is what she would do in my position.

I bash on, in goes the sugar, the eggs and the oil and now I must...whisk.  I look around for my electric hand whisk then it dawns on me - Kath Kapow borrowed it!  Flip!  I phone her but she's not in.  Dave says she's in the pub and he can't drive over with it as he's had a couple himself.  Flip!  I knock on every door in my building to see if anyone can lend me one - not a soul's in!

Undeterred I tip the mixture into my food processor, an engagement present from my Mum a few years ago and hook up it's 'whisky bits'.  I'm back in business....except I'm not.  It starts making a funny noise.   The mixture is so thick that I can see the flimsy plastic 'whiskers' bending instead of going round, then they just pop out of their holes!  Arghhh!

I throw caution to the wind and chuck in the rest of the ingredients and shove it in a cake tin and in the oven.  20-25 mins!  Thank heavens!

And since the kitchen's a terrible mess anyway I decide to make the icing now too.  In goes the icing sugar and the butter and I get the old hand whisk contraption out of the drawer - well I shriek "where is it!?" until Mr Kapow finds it for me!

Soon the entire kitchen is coated in a thin layer of white dust but I'm getting somewhere as Mr Kapow struggles to cover the kettle and toaster from the 'plague' of icing sugar.  Once the cream cheese goes in however I'm simply not strong enough to wind the handle on the whisk so Mr Kapow must take over.

Wind Mr Kapow wind!

At long last it's done.  "Are you sure this is enough icing?" I ask, I don't see how this is going to cover the cake plus be enough to go in the middle too!?" 

That's when I realise, I was meant to make 3 thin cakes to layer on top of one another... I've just made one MASSIVE cake!  Um, do you think this will impact the cooking time?...................

That was 2 hours ago!

"Mr Kapow" I sigh, "I refuse to make lemon cupcakes now."  "Good" he says, "can I lick the whisk?"