Carrot Cake -- Sweet Melissa Sundays

I have three Sweet Melissa Sunday treats to share, I had been trying to bake along and just got too swamped to blog about them! First up is carrot cake, this was our pick for today, chosen for us by Julie at Little Bit of Everything, thank you Julie! You can find the recipe for this delicious carrot cake here at Julie's site if you do not have The Sweet Melissa Baking Book.

~ mountain of shredded carrots ~

I changed up this cake a little bit, mainly by baking it in a bundt pan instead of the traditional layer cake as written in the recipe. I saw fellow SMS Baker Nina mention she was using a bundt pan in the P&Q section for this recipe and thought that was such a great idea, I hope she doesn't mind I baked this cake in a bundt also :) My second change to this recipe was to swap out the walnuts for raisins, we were out of walnuts and even though we have just about every other nut on hand, I didn't want to use pecans or macadamias because then my picky husband wouldn't have even tried this cake. I added in the raisins because we all like raisins, especially the kids, and we just bought four pounds of raisins at Sam's Club -- what better way to start using 'em up than carrot cake?

Lastly, I left off the frosting. The cake was supposed to be frosted with a delicious sounding orange cream cheese frosting, but picky husband hates cream cheese, and even though I love it, I figured I wanted to make this cake to his liking, especially since I had already omitted the nuts for his tastes. End result? An amazing carrot bundt cake! I dusted it with powdered sugar, and everyone eagerly clamored around for a taste, and yes, even picky husband liked it! This cake reminds me of a sweet quick bread taste and texture, which I love, and I'm betting it will be great with a cup of tea :)

Next up to share is a pitcher of Strawberry Lemonade, picked for us to try by Jessica at My Baking Heart -- you can find the recipe for this delicious drink, and a cute picture of her special birthday glass here at her site.

We love strawberries and lemonade so this was a huge hit for the whole family. Will be making this one again for sure!

One more late SMS treat to share, Lemon Walnut Sour Cream Pound Cake, picked for us to try back in January by Raeann of Basically, Baby Boots -- this was a delicious pound cake, I loved the lemon and walnut combo! You can find the recipe here at her site.