Carrot Cake Hunt

My birthday is in a couple weeks and I've decided I want to make my own cake this year.  I'm a cake snob, what can I say?  My all time favorite type of cake is carrot cake, and it's traditionally not the flavor of cake anyone else jumps up and down for, so I have to take advantage of my birthday to put it at the top of the priority list.  So I'm on the hunt for the BEST carrot cake recipe I can find.

I made one of my Grandma's recipes first and it was good, but not "it".  Tonight I made another variation from Mel's Kitchen Cafe.  Again, it was good, but the texture wasn't quite spot on for me. It was a bit too airy for my personal tastes.  So far most of the recipes I've looked at are VERY similar in ingredients and quantities, which is unusual. I will need to branch out from my normal go-to websites to try and find something totally different.

In the mean time, carrot cakes will make repeated appearances at my husband's work as I try to pawn off mass quantities of cake over the next two weeks.  I'll probably be so sick of carrot cake by the time my birthday is here that I'll end up making vanilla instead. :)

Whole Grain Banana Muffins

I was looking for a healthier banana muffin for a snack.  I tried these Whole Grain Banana Muffins from Our Best Bites.  I didn't add the pecans or brown sugar to the tops.  They were sweet enough without the brown sugar topping and were really tasty for a healthy muffin. I loved that there was only 1/4 cup of butter in the recipe and that you can sub some honey.  The kids chowed down on them, and gave them a thumbs up. They are a keeper!