Earlier today, my nephew and I took some baking lessons from my mom. She taught us how to bake her famous banana cake. We made two batches, one batch prepared by me, the second one by my nephew. We also threw in some impromptu carrot muffins. The recipe for the banana cake is a secret so I can only share  the photo.

Looks yummy, don’t they? I like it with a little butter spread. Note: this is the only banana cake I eat.

The carrot muffins recipe I can share. Well, it’s actually carrot cake but we made muffins instead for the kids. It is Betty Crocker’s recipe and it’s supposed to have nuts and cream cheese frosting. We omitted the nuts because of the kids and we didn’t have cream cheese at the time so no frosting too, like what I said, it was impromptu. But it was still good! It’s so moist and not too sweet. Anyway, you can find the recipe and more info here.

Carrot Cake

1 1/2 cups sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
3 large eggs
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 cups shredded carrots (5 medium)
1 cup coarsely chopped nuts

Heat oven to 350°. Grease bottom and sides of rectangular pan, 13 x 9 x 2 inches, or 2 round pans, 8 x 1 1/2 or 9 x 1 1/2 inches, with shortening; lightly flour.

Beat sugar, oil and eggs in large bowl with electric mixer on low speed about 30 seconds or until blended. Add remaining ingredients except carrots and nuts; beat on low speed for 1 minute. Stir in carrots and nuts. Pour into pan(s).

Bake rectangle 40 to 45 minutes, rounds 30 to 35 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool rectangle in pan on wire rack. Cool rounds 10 minutes; remove rom pans to wire rack. Cool completely, about 1 hour.

Cream Cheese Frosting

8 ounces cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup butter or stick margarine
2 to 3 teaspoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
4 cups powdered sugar

Beat cream cheese, butter, milk and vanilla in medium bowl with electric mixer on low speed until smooth.

Gradually beat in powdered sugar, 1 cup at a time, on low speed until smooth and spreadable. Store frosted cake or any remaining frosting covered in refrigerator.

We have a couple of canned Salmon sitting around the kitchen cabinet. Nobody wants to eat it and I hate to see it go to waste so I searched the net for recipes. I came across this Fish Spring Roll recipe and its Google description said it is the best one ever so I had to try it. The verdict: it does taste good, I can almost not distinguish the canned Salmon taste. I am going to try this with non-canned fish next time. Of course you can serve it with sweet and sour sauce of ketchup instead of honey mustard, but I kinda liked it with honey mustard dip. You can find the original recipe here.

Shanghai-style egg roll wrappers

Filling:
1 12oz can pink Salmon
1 onion chopped
1 carrot chopped
2 tablespoons pickle relish
1 tablespoon of flour
8 tablespoons of milk
1 egg
Salt, pepper, sugar

Mix all ingredients for the filling in a bowl. Put a spoonful of filling on the egg-roll wrapper and wrap it. Fry until golden brown. Remove excess oil with a paper napkin then serve with honey mustard dip.

Honey Mustard Dip

1/4 cup mayonnaise
1 tablespoon prepared mustard
1 tablespoon honey
1/2 tablespoon lemon juice

In a small bowl, whisk together the mayonnaise, mustard, honey, and lemon juice. Store covered in the refrigerator.