Carrots, Sugar, and the Holidays (plus a giveaway)

Christmas is almost here! In light of that, I wanted to share with you guys something really special. I mean really, really special. (I know the pictures are enticing, but stick around because at the end of the post I have a giveaway for you guys!)

In my family, as long as I can remember, my family has baked one thing during every holiday, carrot cakes. These little loaves of deliciousness were given out as gifts, brought to parties, and shared for breakfasts and deserts. On my father's side, this family recipe is the only one that has been passed down several generations. The cakes are moist and packed with flavor. Even the recipe card is written in my late Grandmother's handwriting (which I'm going to have framed one day soon).

Now here's where I break your heart. I can't share it! I know, I know. I'm sorry for the buildup. It's the only recipe passed down from several generations of Italians (not pasta, gravy, or biscotti, but carrot cake). It's special and will either go to the grave with me or be passed down to my (future) kids.

What I can give you is the next best thing another carrot cake recipe I found years ago--and let me tell you it is just as amazing.

First, a story (it is my trade after all).

I'm a baker at heart. I'm not sure when exactly it started since I don't remember doing an abnormal amount of baking as child, but some time in my teens I realized the cookie dough rolled up in the tubes at the grocery store wasn't as good as the one I could make from fresh ingredients. Yes, cookies are my drug of choice, but I've nothing against a great cake either. I baked long before I learned how to cook anything other than packaged mac and cheese and romin, so I feel like more of a baker than a cook.

Keeping with that, here is the recipe for my

Almost As Good As Grandma Basso’s Carrot Cake 

2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
1 ¼ teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 ¼ teaspoons cinnamon
½ teaspoon nutmeg
¼ teaspoon cloves
¼ teaspoon all spice
½ teaspoon salt
4 large eggs, at room temperature
1 ½ cups granulated sugar
½ cup packed light brown sugar
1 ½ cups vegetable oil (I know how it sounds, just trust me.)
1 pound carrots (about 2 cups) peeled and grated
Optional ingredients:
1 ½ cups toasted pecans or walnuts, chopped
1 cup of raisins

Now, before we get any further I have two things to say. One: When baking, always use fresh ingredients. Baking powder that’s more than a year old isn’t going to rise right, and old spices are bland. Two: Grate the carrots yourself or with a food processor, don’t go out and buy those pre-shredded carrots, they don’t have the texture or moisture you’ll need.

Putting these bad boys together:

1. Adjust oven rack to the middle position and heat the oven to 350 degrees. Lightly coat a 9 by 13-inch cake pan (or two small rounds which will cook for 25-30 minutes) with vegetable oil spray. Whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda, spices, and salt together in a large bowl and set aside.

2. Whisk the eggs and sugars together in a large bowl until frothy and the sugar is mostly dissolved, about 1 minute. While whisking, slowly add the oil until the mixture is combined and emulsified, about 1 minute. Whisk in the flour mixture until no streaks of flour remain. Stir in carrots (and nuts and raisins, if you’re choosing to use them).

3. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top. Bake until a wooden skewer inserted into the center of the cake comes out with a few crumbs attached (this part is important, don’t over bake), 35 to 40 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through baking.

4. Let the cake cool before applying the awe-mazing cream cheese frosting.

Cream cheese frosting, you say? Why yes! Did I forget to mention the preverbial cherry on top?

Here’s what you’ll need for the frosting:

8 ounces of cream cheese, softened
5 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
1 tablespoon sour cream
½ teaspoon vanilla extract (but I always add a little more, about a teaspoon. Not into vanilla? Substitute the sour cream for orange juice and the vanilla for a teaspoon of freshly grated orange zest)
1 ¼ cups confectioners’ sugar

(Hey, this is a cake recipe for the holidays, not a quick guide for losing weight)

Stir together the cream cheese, butter, sour cream, and vanilla until combined. Add the confectioners’ sugar and continue to stir until smooth.

And boom. The yummiest (though maybe not the prettiest, sorry guys) carrot cake you’ve ever had!

Now I couldn’t think of a descent segue to get us from carrot cake to the rafflecopter, so I’ve done it the lazy man’s way. Look here! There’s a giveaway!
~Lisa
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Finding the joy of the season

Two years ago, two days after Christmas, my father-in-law passed away. He'd been sick for several months, and Christmas that year - my son's first - was spent sitting on the end of his bed because he was too weak to get up and come to the living room. It was a joyous time, but also incredibly sad.

This year, we are in the middle of a move. (This post is going up at 6:00 pm because this is the first time I've had a moment to breathe all day.) Our house is nothing but boxes and mess and chaos. No tree, no lights, no decorations. If it weren't for the music I keep playing in the background while I pack and clean (and the pile of snow I can see outside my office window as I type this), one wouldn't know it was Christmas around here at all. We leave in two days to take our first load to our new house, 500 miles away. We come back Christmas Eve, and start the day after Christmas to load the next trip.

But….

My kid will be three in a month. This is the first year he is actively excited about Christmas. He gets what is going on, recognizes Santa Claus, and asks for Christmas songs every time a radio comes on. He is beyond thrilled. So even though I feel nothing but overwhelmed, I need to find the joy of the Christmas season.

(Can we mention how bummed I am that I have to search for the joy? I LOVE Christmas. Love it. I start listening to Christmas songs in October August. Even two years ago, when John was so sick, I was excited for Christmas.)

So every so often, despite how busy I am and how badly I can't afford to take breaks, I need to step back from packing and prepping and cleaning. I grab my kid and we dance to some Christmas tunes. Or we read a book. Or watch Prep & Landing. We leave the house and play in the snow. We talk about Santa and family and traditions and Jesus.

Sometimes, in the back of my mind, I'm listing the millions of things I still have to do. But sometimes - and these are the best times - I forget all of that and just enjoy the moment with Boy Sprout, the excitement of Christmas all around us.

Have you ever had this experience of having to search and work for holiday joy? What's worked for you?

(Pssst….don't forget to enter our 12 Days of Christmas giveaway. There are some fantastic books and goodies up for grabs, y'all!)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

I'll have the (Christmas) special

I'm honored to be the first to post for the INDIE IGNITES TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS.

As the senior member of Indie Ignites (I think), I’m going to tell you young folks a little story of Christmas past. It goes all the way back to the days before blu-ray, before DVDs, even before VCRs – before cable TV, even. Yes, television used to come to us on four, maybe five stations, the three national networks and a couple of crappy local stations that played mostly local talent shows and horror movies (though I fondly recall one that had the Super G races, in which gerbils raced each other live, or even Dialing for Dollars, on which a host would call people during commercial breaks and give out prizes to those watching the movie.) Those were the days, kids. 

And the most magical part of the television viewing year was Christmas with its much-anticipated Christmas specials. They were only on once a year, so you had to study TV Guide to make sure you got the right night, because if you missed Santa Claus is Comin' to Town you were stone out of luck. You just had to wait another 360 days to catch it again.

My favorites were The Grinch Who Stole Christmas and A Charlie Brown Christmas. I was always bathed, in my jammies, and right in front of the set on those special nights, and I didn’t even mind if they pre-empted The Brady Bunch. (Can you tell how old I am yet?).  I think my first crush on a fictional character was on Linus, despite his unfortunate hair.  He was thoughtful and had a spiritual quality I really admired even then. Plus his last name is "Van Pelt." How cool is that? And to this day, whenever I am in a situation that calls for dancing, I imitate the side-to-side sort of pogo that Charlie and his friends did onstage at the Christmas pageant, hoping that it looks kind of cool and retro and ironic and not evidence that I have all the grace of a crippled donkey. (I could not find a free-use image from the special, but here is a Charlie Brown latte, which is almost as good):

 

Charlie Brown latte, Christopher from San Francisco, July 9, 2012 http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Charlie_Brown!_(7539446408).jpg

Unlike my own children, I was never scared of the Grinch. As a kid, I found his underbite kind of charming, though I cried whenever he mistreated Max, who had to be the sweetest little cartoon dog in history.  As an adult, I still love this special because it's about the holiday being about love and not material goods, my daughter bore an uncanny resemblance to Cindy Lou Hoo as an infant (though, mercifully, without the antennae), and because as a veg*n I appreciate the sly anti-meat critique in the serving of the "roast beast." Plus, I live in Dr. Seuss' hometown now (in fact, his wife grew up just down the street from here) and I like to visit Springfield Museum Quadrangle's Sculpture Garden to hang out with a bronze Grinch and Max. I could not find a photo of that that I could post without risking copyright infringement, but here is a pretty awesome sand sculpture Grinch:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cayobo/5293971507/

You don't need to snow in Key West to make a festive holiday snowsandman.

    And you don't need snow either to win some holiday presents. Just enter the Rafflecopter giveaway here! Best of luck and have the happiest of  holidays!

 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The Debutantes Reflect

While we didn't actually get to dress like this and practice our curtsies, some of the ladies of Indie Ignites became Author Debutantes in 2013. We published our first books and for the first time could call ourselves AUTHORS. So as this auspicious year comes to a close, I thought it would be fun to ask some of my fellow Indie Debs to talk about the experience of launching yourself into the world as a writer. Here's what they had to say, below, but, first, MEET OUR DEBS

JC EMERY released her first novel,

 which is also the first in a series (MEN WITH BADGES). She self-published this as well as her debut novels in the BAYONET SCARS series. It's been a very productive year for JC!

LISA BASSO also debuted with the first in a series; the novel

 kicks off the trilogy THE ANGEL SIGHT SERIES. She's published with Swoon Romance.

I, STEPHANIE WARDROP, brought out the first three in a series of YA e-novellas based on Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. The first installment was 

published by Swoon. The last installment releases in January of 2014.

RELEASE WEEK AND BEYOND

I spent so much time worrying about the writing that I didn't really put much thought into what it would be like when the book actually came out (I was just so relieved that it did!). Lisa Basso and I both had blog tours, so we were in the enviable but chaotic position of having to write twenty-plus completely fabulous blog posts in a few weeks. "It was crazy," Lisa says. "I didn't have much time to celebrate [that first week, but after that], man was that sweet."  JC had to figure out how to market her book on her own (and let me tell you, she has gotten very good at it), so her release week was "quiet." 

But once the book was out and people were actually reading it (squeeeee!), things started to happen. For me, people I hadn't been in contact with for years looked me up on Facebook and everyone was amazingly proud of me and very sweet about congratulating me.  Publishing a book is a big deal to people and it's really gratifying to have had so many people happy for me.  I also suddenly got to meet (virtually) a whole group of other writers and wonderful bloggers.  Lisa agrees, saying. "I've gotten to know so many amazing bloggers, authors, and book lovers I never would have had the pleasure of meeting otherwise. Including the amazing ladies of Indie Ignites." Right back at ya, Lisa! 

JC had a few more twists and turns in her year-long journey. I'll let her tell it to you straight, but if you go to Amazon or any other site selling books, you'll see it has a happy ending: Through a strange twist of events, my first book ended up being free for five

months (which I talk about here). It was (in my opinion) a really good thing 

for my career. It let people know that I’m here, but it also meant that I was 

giving away my work for several months. Because of a shoestring budget, I 

wasn’t able to do certain things until my fourth book (Ride, which debuted 

October 25th

months for me to consider myself a published author. I kept making excuses 

for how it wasn’t really real yet. I even made my mom wait until I was 

enough of a success to tell my family. I just didn’t want to fail in front of them, 

and since I had very low expectations, I’ve been pleasantly surprised with 

what I’ve been able to do.

) like a formal blog tour, cover reveal, etc. It actually took several

BEST PART OF BECOMING A PUBLISHED AUTHOR FOR THE FIRST TIME

JC said "I felt brave. A lot of people thought I shouldn't publish at all, let alone self-publish . . . I've always wanted to be my own boss, and I didn't know that I'd ever be able to make enough money off of a business to truly work for myself . . . but for now I can say that I made my dreams come true in 2013."

For Lisa, the best part was, "hands down, being contacted by a reader who loved my book. There's nothing like it."

WHAT WOULD YOU DO DIFFERENTLY NOW IF YOU COULD?

It seems that we'd do it all over again if we had the chance.  JC said "Were there things I could have done better? Absolutely. I made mistakes—

big mistakes—but I wouldn’t want to have done a single thing differently. For 

the first time in my life I showed myself how truly capable I am. I’ve worked 

harder, taken more risks, and have ventured into areas I didn’t know possible 

this year. 2013 has been the best year ever and I wouldn’t change a single 

thing."

Lisa had some good advice for newbie authors that I'll share verbatim: "If I could do anything differently, I would keep a journal of the things that came up after I signed 

my contract. I'd log how many hours I wrote, edited, and promoted each day." Especially if you are trying to figure out if you can really "afford" to do this, even if you are not planning on quitting your day job any time soon, it's probably a good idea to keep track of all the hours you put into everything in addition to the writing, the marketing, blogging, interviewing, and, with a little luck, red carpet-walking when you sell your book to Hollywood. Hey, 'tis the season to dream big! And this past year, many of our dreams have already come true.

Buy Marital Bitch at  http://www.amazon.com/Marital-Bitch-Men-Badges-ebook/dp/B00B687AX0/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1371196872&sr=1-2, A Shimmer of Angels at http://www.amazon.com/Shimmer-Angels-Angel-Sight-Series/dp/0985029439/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1386208596&sr=8-1&keywords=a+shimmer+of+angels, and the Snark and Circumstance series at  http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_13?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=snark+and+circumstance&sprefix=snark+and+cir%2Caps%2C245  . They make excellent holiday gifts :).

Tonight: Indie Ignites on #k8chat

Just a quick post to share that Indie Ignites will be featured on Kate Tilton's (@K8Tilton) #K8chat Twitter discussion tonight! We will be discussing the benefits of author groups. The chat is from 9:00-10:00 EST.

#K8chat is a weekly Twitter chat hosted by Kate Tilton. (Click here to learn more about it.)

Hope to see you there!