A Christmas dinner, and A Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese frosting

Yesterday my sister-in-law Annie invited us and another SIL Doreen to her house for a Christmas dinner. I brought my favourite carrot cake with cream cheese frosting (now becomes Annie 's favourite too, hehehe),  macarons for her daughter who loves macarons and Nama chocolate to her house.

I still have room to improve for a nice macaron, i feel my macarons still has no nice legs or skirts..I suspected that it was caused by high oven temperature and i need to practise more..

I also made Nama chocolate from a very popular recipe by Nami Just One Cookbook...

I forgot to take this chocolate picture in Annie's house, this picture was taken at home, with a nice oven mitten from Jane and silver cake stand from Helena..

Let's see what we had on that night. All foods were prepared by my SIL's husband Terry who is a great cook!

Starter- Pig in blanket ( In the United Kingdom, "pigs in blankets" refers to small sausages (usually Chipolatas) wrapped in bacon. They are a traditional accompaniment to roast turkey for Christmas dinner. Pigs in blankets can be accompanied with devils on horseback, an appetizer of prunes, or less commonly dates, wrapped in bacon, read more here)

Nice cheese with crackers..

Her daughters supposed to make a Christmas Fruit Tree..

after i brought my son for a good swim (at the swimming pool) downstairs.. 

Once we returned i saw the edible fruits tree has became fruits platters on plates. They seem have given up making this tree. You can see a Christmas fruit tree image here

Chicken Shepherd Pie, my son Desmond loves this very much. You can refer to my cottage pie recipe and it is just replace the beef with chicken..

The main course- A very nice and moist roast Turkey. Terry strongly recommended this easy and good recipe from Jamie Oliver

I love the special stuffing which not stuff inside the usual cavity area instead stuff in between skin and breast..

resulted very flavourful meat..

brown sauce and vegetables

everyone was enjoying this yummy Turkey meal..

And we had carrot cake for dessert, feel shy for my poor frosting..I got the idea of pipe red poinsiettas when i saw in Piece of Cake blog..So I quickly bought a leaf tip to pipe these flowers but red was end up become orange in colour as the colour of cream cheese has smeared into the colour of red.

We also had this fruit cake with Kahlua, very special indeed!

A must have item during Christmas, gingerman cookies

Every kids received a Christmas gifts given by Annie, and even i have Christmas gift too. It was few very lovely knitted cup dolly, you will be seeing these in my future pictures..

Last but not least, Terry was afraid that we were still hungry (actually we all still very full), he went to stir fried a big plate of Kampua noodles (he brought back from Sibu) for us, another yummy treat!! Even we still feel full, this big plate of noodles still gone just in a minute!

I made a larger carrot cake this time, i modified the old recipe to make a 8" carrot cake..

Carrot cake with cream cheese frosting
Recipe source: modified from old recipe here, with minor changes
*makes a 8” round pan

Carrot cake
300g finely shredded carrots
260g all purpose flour
1tsp baking powder
1tsp baking soda
1/2tsp salt
160g caster sugar
110g brown sugar
1/2tsp nutmeg powder
1/2tsp cinnamon powder
200g corn oil
1tsp vanilla extract
4 eggs, lightly stir
100g walnut, chopped
50g mixed dried fruits
50g dried cranberries

Method
1. Sift flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking powder and baking soda in a mixing bowl.
2. Add in caster sugar, salt and brown sugar, stir well.
3. Add in carrots, corn oil, vanilla extract and egg, beat for few minutes till mixture well combined.
4. Add in walnut and dried fruits, mix well.
5. Pour in a greased and line baking pan, bake at pre-heated oven 180c for 50mins or inserted with a skewer came out clean.
6. Cool on a wire rack and apply cream cheese frosting.

Cream Cheese frosting
300g cream cheese, at room temperature
80g butter, at room temperature
140g icing sugar, sifted
2tsp lemon zest


Method
1. Beat cream cheese and butter till light and creamy.
2. Add in icing sugar and mix well on low speed.
3. Add in lemon juices and lemon zest, combine well.
4. Store in fridge for later use.

Thank you to Annie and Terry for the invite, we were enjoyed so much for all yummy foods that prepared for us..