For my birthday I really wanted carrot cake. But not just any carrot cake. I wanted to have a very moist carrot cake with lots of extra goodies, like pineapple. Jody was stressed it wouldn’t turn out, and so was Sarah, so she bought an extra boxed cake mix just in case. Know what happened? Deliciousness….plus an extra cake! Two cakes…you can’t go wrong.

We started with the bare bones of Pioneer Woman’s Carrot Cake (http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2008/03/sigrids-carrot-cake-perfect-for-easter/) but we made it Texas style, wherein we added a bunch of good stuff, like pudding, pineapples, raisins, applesauce–it makes it totally different. I remember when I worked night shift at the hospital, and our charge nurse Mary would bring a carrot cake when we worked on the weekends. When word got out that cake was in the house, people would swarm the unit like the second coming–and it would be gone it seconds. I couldn’t remember how she said she made it but I remembered the pineapples.

I also remembered this old recipe I used to make that called for baby food carrots which sounds gross but is perfect–no long carrot-type hair thingies in the cake. The baby food mixes with the other ingredients to make a consistent carrot taste throughout the cake. Trust me on this.

Also I should mention: my kitchen was completely destroyed afterward, but it was worth it.

Jody’s Carrot Cake (With Sarah’s Icing)

2 cups sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
4 eggs
2 1/2 cups All-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp ground cinnamon
2 cups carrot baby food (be sure it’s only carrots–and not a carrot-pea mixture or some other disgusting thing)
1/2 cup golden raisins
1 cup crushed walnuts, divided into half cups (one for in the cake, one for the icing)
1 package instant vanilla pudding
1 small can pineapples, crushed and drained
1/2 cup cinnamon applesauce

Icing
1 stick salted butter, softened
1 package Philly (8 Oz) cream cheese
1 pound powdered sugar
2 tsp vanilla

Preheat the oven to 350. In a mixing bowl, combine wet ingredients, raisins and walnuts.If you don’t like nuts you can always skip this part. In a separate bowl, mix the dry ingredients and add to wet ingredients until moistened. Batter will be very wet.

Bake until the center is dry when checked with a toothpick. This may take a while–up to an hour. When the cake is done, it will look similar to a zucchini bread consistency–nice and moist.

When it’s completely cooled, mix up the icing and spread on.

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