Baby Shower







One of my very very good friends is having a baby boy in about 3 weeks! About two weeks ago her mom threw a baby shower for her. It was so much fun. I was asked to make all the desserts and was so honored that her mother would trust me with this task! Mary, the mother to be's mom wanted to do a french theme. I made Gâteau aux carrottes (french style carrot cake), rose water Madeleines, Korova Cookies, and mini lemon tarts! I think everything turned out so yummy!
The shower was on Saturday afternoon so I knew I had to get busy prepping on Friday. Actually, I ended up making the dough for the Korova cookies on Thursday night and then baking Friday night. Friday night was a busy one! I started at 5pm and finally went to bed at 12:30, and I was still not done. I woke up Saturday morning at 6 and made the mini tarts and carrot cake and I had 45 minutes to spare to wash all the flour and sugar out of my hair! I got so many compliments on how good everything tasted, the one thing I forgot to do is bring business cards to promote my business!
My friend, Lauren really enjoyed herself and is totally glowing and looks fantastic, I am so excited to meet her little boy. He is going to have so many people to love him.
I went to David Lebowitz's website and used a recipe for his carrot cake. Which he found in Lulu’s Provençal Table* by Richard Olney, foreword by Alice Waters.) I changed a few things to the original.

For the madeleines I used a recipe from Martha Stewart in her wedding section of her website. I ended up just added some rose water on top of the madeleines so it was not too sweet. The Kovora cookies were from Smitten Kitchen
And finally the mini lemon tarts with lemon curd were from many sources! The dough is a combination of several recipes that makes my own and the lemon curd is from my mom. I have no idea where she got the recipe!

Here is the recipe for the Carrot Cake:

8 tablespoons butter, salted or unsalted, at room temperature
1 1/4 cups sugar
pinch of salt
4 large eggs, at room temperature
1 3/4 cups toasted walnuts
2/3 cup flour
1/4 cup, packed,finely grated carrot

1. Preheat the oven to 325F . Butter a 8x8 baking pan and line with a square of parchment paper.

2. Beat the butter, sugar and salt until smooth.

3. Meanwhile, pulverize the nuts and flour in a food processor or blender until relatively fine, but not powdery. If you don’t have a machine, simply chop the nuts by hand and toss them with the flour.

3. Beat in the eggs one at a time. Afterwards, stir in the ground nut mixture and the carrots, mixing just until smooth.

4. Bake for 30 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

Cool, and cut in pieces to eat!

This recipe was so easy and turned out moist and perfect. Just sprinkle a little powered sugar on for presentation.

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