
The thing about the carrot cakes she makes me if that we never save the recipe. Each year she goes on an internet search for a carrot cake that includes pineapple in it and I would imagine that each year it has been a different recipe.
This year was no different.

Wellie went on a search on her laptop and at the same time I was on my desktop, both of us looking for that perfect carrot cake recipe. After comparing several recipes and much discussion, we decided to I persuaded Wellie to make Ina Garten’s Carrot and Pinepple Cake..
Without a doubt, I think this is the very best carrot cake that Wellie has made me. And I know this is loaded in calories, but it is so worth it to me. And it’s not like I have it everyday, right? We liked it so much that I wanted to be sure to post it here for safekeeping. There was a few changes. The main one was that we didn’t use fresh pineapple, but instead we used canned. Also, we omitted the raisins. There was a few other changes: we used extra cream cheese and we didn’t coat the walnuts in flour. Here’s what we did:
PrintCarrot and Pineapple Cake
Ingredients
Cake
- 2 cups sugar
- 1 1/3 cups vegetable oil
- 3 eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 2 teaspoons baking soda
- 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
- 1 cup chopped walnuts
- 1 pound carrots (grated)
- 1 in can crushed pineapple juice (20 oz, drained well)
Frosting
- 2 oz pkgs cream cheese (8 each, at room temperature)
- 2 lb sticks unsalted butter (1/4 each, at room temperature)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 pound confectioners’ sugar
Optional Decoration
- 1 cup chopped walnuts (I do think we used more than 1 cup)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour two (8″) round cake pans.
- In a large bowl, beat the sugar, oil, eggs and vanilla together. In a separate bowl, sift together flour, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt. In batches, add the flour mixture to the sugar/egg mixture. Gently add the walnuts, carrots and pineapple into the batter.
- Divide the batter between the two pans. Bake for 50 to 60 minutes, or just until a toothpick comes out clean. Allow the cakes to cool completely in the pans set over a wire rack.
- In a bowl, beat the cream cheese, butter and vanilla with mixer until combined and creamy. In small batches, mix in the the sugar until all has been added and is smooth.
- Place one layer of cake, bottom/flat side up, on a plate (or cake pedestal, like I did). Spread the top of this piece with frosting. Place the second cake layer on top of the first one, with the bottom/flat side down (rounded side up). Spread the rest of the frosting on the top and sides of the cake. Decorate with chopped walnuts – if you are only using a few, you can put just some on the top. We decided to cover our top and sides with lots of chopped walnuts.
Adapted from Ina Garten
Wellie did most of the work, but she let me help a bit and it was nice spending time in the kitchen with her. Thank you Wellie for my cake – I love you.

Leave a Reply