Carrot Cake

I have made this cake for at least 25 years 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
• 3/4 cup oil
• 1 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 2 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon soda
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 cups coconut
• 1 cup crushed pineapple, drained and 1/4 cup of the juice
• 2 cups carrots, finely grated (3-4 carrots)

1. Prepare 9 x 9 pan or 8 - 9 inch springform pan 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, grease and line bottom of pan with parchment paper.
2. Beat eggs, oil and sugar well. 
3. Add combined dry ingredients, then coconut, pineapple and carrots. 
4. Spread into prepared pan.
5. Bake at 350 F for 60 – 70 minutes. Test with toothpick. Serves 9 large pieces or 12-16 fair sized

Cream Cheese Frosting*

• 1/4 cup butter, room temp
• 4 oz cream cheese, room temp
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 - 1 1/2 cups 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.

Decorating options:
1) Cool completely in pan and spread icing on cake. Dab, using the back of a spoon to lift waves or just sprinkle with nuts or toasted coconut.
2) Cool 10 min. Invert onto cooling rack, remove paper. Cool completely to decorate. *To frost sides and top of cake, double the icing amount.
If you need a larger cake, use 1 ½ times the recipe, for a 9x13 pan. (4 large eggs, 1 cup oil, 2 cups sugar, 3 cups flour, 2 tsp BP, 1 tsp soda, 1/2 tsp salt, 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 2 cups coconut, 3 cups carrots, 1 can crushed pineapple with the juice.)

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.

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