Mega-carrot cake challenge and treats direct from Hungary

Today we had someone who had signed up to bring in the good stuff.  She went with a mega carrot cake from Sam's club. The cakes at Sam's club are intended to feed an army.  They are always large and this one was no exception being probably a 15 inch cake.  Carrot cakes do tend to be dense and then you have the cream cheese frosting which is not exactly light either.  You can say they are satisfying for sure.  We hadn't seen a carrot cake in awhile so it was a nice idea.

Sam's Carrot Cake...$1000 if you can eat the whole thing!

It's bigger than it looks!

We've had the Sam's version before and enjoyed it and this was no exception.  It was moist and dense and of course does not taste anything like carrots. They are just shredded up and tossed into what is predominantly spice cake batter.  The cream cheese frosting was also as expected and the decorative carrots made of regular frosting was a colorful touch as was the crushed walnut border at the base of the cake.  All in all very satisfactory.  Although it may not seem so from the pictures this actually was a pretty big cake. The challenge that was made was $1000 would be paid if someone could eat the entire cake within a half hour.  The big surprise is that some people actually considered it.  We had our texting pediatrician and our vet-cum-PhD-to-be both claiming that they would be able to do it.  The rest of us considered it out of the question. Now the challenge is to come up with something equally ridiculous that they can actually try to accomplish. Stay tuned!

Frosting carrots for decoration...what did you expect?

Not a heck of a lot of carrots visible on the inside!

I could eat the whole thing...

Another one contemplating the gluttony!

As if the mega-carrot cake was not enough our Hungarian colleague returned from a sojourn to his home country and brought a bunch of homemade treats with him.  Although it might have been preferable to wait a day given the cake already consumed for freshness reasons it was dictated that we also try the Hungarian treats today.  It was a bad day if you were watching your caloric intake.

We had these desserts from Hungary:
1. Turos batyu - This is a delicious pastry filled with Hungarian cottage cheese and raisins - kind of like a cheese Danish. A cheese Hungarian maybe?

Turos Batyu...homemade by our colleague's aunt!

 

 

Turos Batyu or Cheese Hungarian on the right!

2. Ozgerinc or deer spine (cocoa powder, lady fingers etc) - This was interesting especially the name!

Imagine this is a deer all chopped up along the spine!

The white things would be the nerve bundles!  Appetizing, no?

3. Pogacsa with cheese and sesame seed on top. These were not particularly sweet but more along the lines of a cheese puff. Something you might have as an appetizer at a beer party! They were very good!

Pogacsa fresh from Hungary!

Something you can easily pop into your mouth!

4. Turo rudi - the yogurt and chocolate candy bar that little kids in Hungary take to school!  We've had this before and it was lovely to have it again. Once more we are grateful to the relatives of our Hungarian colleague who are helping us to broaden our knowledge of Hungarian cuisine!

New found fans of Hungarian food!