Carrot Pineapple Cake with Maple Cream Cheese Frosting

Hi everybody!! I saw a delicious recipe for carrot cake on The Food Charlatan blog and thought I'd try it, with a few modifications. So, let's start!

First step: contemplation of our goal.

 

So, in the original recipe it calls for two cups toasted pecans, flavored oil (no idea what that is, I just used normal oil), and sour cream (I used Greek yoghurt because we had some).

I also put in twice as much pineapple. That was an accidental modification and I'd recommend just the normal amount of pineapple because then I had to add more flour.

So:

     1 cup white sugar

    1 cup brown sugar

   1 cup oil

     1/4 cup Greek yogurt (I think this really made a difference in the flavor, YUM)

   2 teaspoons vanilla

    4 eggs

    8 ounces crushed pineapple, with juice

Whisk together:

    2 cups flour, spooned and leveled

   2 teaspoons baking soda

   2 teaspoons baking powder

  1 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

                                        

Fold in:

   3 cups grated carrots. I had a bag of grated carrots, but it really seemed like the pieces were way too big so we ended up chopping them)

   1 cup chopped walnuts, toasted (I was out of pecans and almost out of walnuts. Next time I'll use the two whole cups because I loved the crunch and there wasn't quite enough for the amount of pineapple.)

For the frosting:
The original recipe calls for 1 cup finely chopped pecans, toasted. I just couldn't see pecans in my frosting so I left them out. :P
3/4 cup (1 and 1/2 sticks) salted butter, soft
1 and 1/2 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese, soft (12 ounces total)
4 and 1/2 cups powdered sugar
6 tablespoons real maple syrup (I used Grade A)
1 and 1/2 teaspoons maple extract
1/4 teaspoon salt, or to taste
nuts and carrots for garnish

Instructions: preheat over to 350F.

 

 

Whisk all the dry ingredients.

Mix all the wet ingredients. (See all the pineapple? I still didn't clue in. Only later when I had carrot cake soup did I check my can and realize I'd used a 20 oz can instead of 8oz.)

Ednaaaaaaa!!!! She's very energetic in the spring and although it's not quite warm enough to go without a coat, she was ready to work!

 She whipped the frosting up in no time. She's a champ!

Bake for 45-50 minutes in two 9 inch cake pans. Let cool for 20 minutes, carefully release the cake from the pans and flip onto a cooling rack. When perfectly cooled, trim, frost and assemble.

 My little guys wants to decorate with the carrots and since we could just pick them off, I said, "Why not??" There... raw carrots instead of the frosting variety.

 All in all, a delicious recipe! I really liked the pineapple addition, plus the yoghurt. Very moist (probably because too much pineapple, but it still didn't fall apart) and perfect for a fun family dessert!

   And a little reminder that The Pepper In the Gumbo is free for only a little while longer! 310 four and five star reviews!  You can get it here

 

And if you've already read Book One, there's always the next in the series, plus three more, the last releasing later this month! I just loved this couple... When I reach the end of a series I always get sentimental as I look back at my first books with the first characters. *sigh*
 Happy weekend, everybody!