I don’t remember exactly why I decided to make carrot cake in the kitchen of my Polish dorm, six years ago, during my study abroad program. But I’m pretty sure I was put up to it by some of my Polish friends who explained that this is the most typically American dessert around. I remember it being a big ordeal–the kitchen was in the hallway, so there were always people around, wondering what was going on with this giant bowl of shredded carrots and several packages of cream cheese (or the closest Polish equivalent we could find at the time).

Regardless of how it started, it’s now “my thing” in Poland, I guess, and I was really happy to spend a lovely afternoon baking a cake with my friend Asia in Poznan last week. This time, I just pulled a recipe off Allrecipes.com–this one–and it was delicious.

If you make this recipe, might I suggest that you cut the frosting recipe in half. We didn’t use all of it and still wound up in sugar-overload with every piece. Cream cheese frosting just does not need to be 1/4″ thick. Really.

Baking abroad is always a little funny. Most American recipes use measurements that aren’t common abroad, cups or ounces, for example, and although the world is growing ever smaller, there are still some ingredients that are challenging to find in Poland. Vanilla extract tastes different here. Cream cheese is available but rare, so we used ser śmietankowy, which is really similar, but not exact. It’s fun that way, though. We ended up with a “typically American” cake with a somehow slightly Polish twist. Somehow it worked, and between five roommates and me, the cake was gone within a few short days.

Oh! And the best part–my friend taught me a little trick about powdered sugar. The next time you want to make frosting (or whatever) and don’t have confectioner’s sugar on hand, just clean out your electric coffee grinder really well and grind up some regular granulated sugar. It comes out super fluffy and powdery in just a few seconds. Incredible!