Little Miss Sweet & Spicy: Carrot Cake, Take One!

I am in love with carrot cake. Especially carrot cake cupcakes. Which is what I should have made, instead of this carrot cake loaf. I was very excited to hear from Chuck that he used coconut milk instead of butter in his own carrot cake, and I wanted to see if it would work for the carrot cake recipe that I have. Needless to say, I think Chuck's is better (even though I've never had a bite) as I am not as happy with this carrot cake as I should be. Maybe I have too much going on in it, maybe I don't have my head in the game today, I don't know. But this will be my trial carrot cake, and I plan on redoing the recipe when I can bring myself to shred carrots again. (thanks Lauren!) I want to give Chuck a run for his money, but I can see it's going to take alot of trial and error. Once I perfect it, we can have a carrot cake off!

Preheat your oven to 350.

In a bowl, combine 2 cups flour.

add 2 teaspoons of baking powder + 1 teaspoon baking soda.

add 1/2 teaspoon of salt.

add one teaspoon of cinnamon.

and 1/2 teaspoon of all spice.

then add 1//4 teaspoon ground ginger. set aside.

Next in a separate bowl, I added 3 cups shredded carrots, 1 cup raisins, 1 cup chopped walnuts, 1 cup coconut, and one 20 oz can of crushed pineapple (drained).

In a third bowl, crack 4 eggs.

add two teaspoons vanilla extract.

Add 1 1/4 cup of brown sugar to the eggs. Mix together. Add 1 1/4 cups of coconut milk (in lieu of the 1 1/4 cup of butter that I normally would).

add flour mixture to the wet mixture and stir to combine.

add in carrot mixture. (carrots, raisins, coconut, pineapple + walnuts)

place inside a greased cake pan and place in a 350 degree preheated oven for an hour and ten minutes. (Mine went this long since I used a "loaf pan."

I made an easy frosting, with 1/2 package of cream cheese, two tablespoons of butter, 1 1/2 cups confectioners sugar, 2 tablespoons of sour cream to give it a tangy taste, and about 2-3 tablespoons of milk.