Carrot Cake

I have baked this cake for at least 25 years and am not sure where I got the recipe from. During those years I exchanged recipes with my friend Karin, and it may come from her. It's been used for many a shower and birthday cake. The icing works great for spreading and decorating with. You can add food color to it and use the star tip or writing tip for easy decorating.


Ingredients:

3 eggs
1 c oil (or 3/4 c oil, 1/4 c pineapple juice)
1 1/2 c brown sugar
2 c flour
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp soda
2 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 c coconut
1 cup crushed pineapple, drained
2 c grated carrots

Prepare pans by greasing well and dusting with flour, tapping out any excess. If you plan to invert and decorate the whole cake (sides and top) and you don’t have a spring form pan, it’s a good idea to line your pan with parchment paper.
Beat eggs, oil and sugar well. Add combined dry ingredients, then coconut, pineapple and carrots. Spread into prepared 9x9 square pan or 9inch round spring form pan.
Bake at 350 F for 60 – 70 minutes. Test with toothpick.


Cream Cheese Frosting*

1/4 cup butter, room temp
4 oz cream cheese, room temp
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 - 1 1/4 cup confectioner's sugar (icing sugar)
Beat butter and cream cheese, gradually adding icing sugar until desired consistency for spreading. To use with a decorating tube, you may need a little extra icing sugar.

Icing options:
1) Cool completely in pan and ice. Sprinkle with chopped nuts.
2) Cool 10 min. Invert onto cooling rack, remove paper. Cool completely and freeze or frost and decorate. *To frost sides and top of cake, double the icing amount.
If you need to bake a larger cake, use 1 ½ times the recipe, for a 9X13 pan.

For my sister’s birthday last week, I used this recipe and decorated it with dried pineapple flowers. The instructions are with the hummingbird cake previously posted.