• Cooking Time: 40
• Servings: 8
• Preparation Time: 10
• Cake:
• One
• 1¼ cups unsweetened applesauce (or oil, this is what my Nana used)
• 2 cups sugar
• 3 eggs
• Two
• 2 cups flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1½ tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp salt
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• Three
• 2 cups grated carrots
• 1 cup coconut
• 1 cup chopped nuts (optional)
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 cup Dole crushed pineapple (not drained!) {use the pineapple in JUICE not syrup}
• Cream Cheese Frosting:
• ½ cup butter (softened)
• 8 oz cream cheese (softened)
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 lb powdered sugar

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Combine #1 ingredients. Add #2 ingredients. Stir in #3 ingredients.
3. Pour into a lightly greased 9 x 13 or two 8 or 9-inch pans.
4. Bake for 35-40 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Let cakes cool completely!
5. For the frosting:
6. Beat the butter and cream cheese until nice and fluffy. Add in the vanilla and powdered sugar and beat until nice and smooth. In the interest of full disclosure, I ALWAYS double this recipe. We love our cream cheese frosting and although I never use it all, it's amazing on top of graham crackers. That's how my Nana would serve it to us for snacks ;)
7. Invert the cake onto a cake plate or stand.
8. Apply a generous dollop of frosting and spread...
9. Gently place the second cake on top and continue frosting.
10. Sometimes if the cake is crumbly, I'll do a crumb coat. If I'm in a hurry or don't think it's going to be an issue, I'll skip this step.

Carrot cake can be made very well or not so well. This is an often misyliiked substitution for eating raw carrots. Carrots can be grown locally and have a wide number f health benefits. They are important to helping human health.