New Toys and Cake

After 6 years without a proper food processor or blender, I finally broke down and bought a Ninja Professional.  OMG!  It is fantastic!  And it makes fantastic food so much easier.  

Today is my husband's birthday and his favorite cake is carrot cake.  Most of the cake, I make, is the easy from the box kind, but I have always made my carrot cake from scratch.  It just tastes better from scratch.  Without a food processor, this is a laborious task.  You have to grate the carrots but hand and thus you end up with orange hands for days.  Plus I am notorious for grating more than just the carrot!  Ouch!  

So here I go making another carrot cake, but this time I have my new toy.  I had so much fun!   So did my kids! They had never seen a carrot grated in a food processor.  There was a lot of giggling.  Who knew the entertainment value of a few carrots and a grating blade?  Carrots grated, eggs and oil added and I was able to mix the whole batter in the pitcher portion with the double blade!  No mixing by hand!  My shoulder and elbow are happy about this.    

With the batter done and in the oven it was time for frosting.  I got an amazing hand mixer for our wedding, and have always used this to make my frostings.  Cream cheese frosting, of course, has powdered sugar in it and with a hand mixer this can be very messy.  Now I can make frosting without the mess and it is smoother and creamier.  Here is the finished product:

It tasted as good as it looks.  Even my picky eater loved it.  So tonight I am a happy girl.