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HANNAH'S SPECIAL CARROT CAKE
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F., rack in the middle position.

2 cups white (granulated) sugar
3 eggs
3/4 cup vegetable oil (not canola, or olive, or anything but veggie oil)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup sour cream (or unflavored yogurt)
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons cinnamon (or ½ teaspoon cardamom and the rest cinnamon)
1 ½ teaspoons salt
1 20-ounce can crushed pineapple, juice and all***
2 cups chopped walnuts (or pecans)
2 ½ cups flour (don't sift -pack it down when you measure)
2 cups grated carrots (also pack them down when you measure)

*** That's about 1 ½ cups of crushed pineapple and a scant cup juice

Grease (or spray with Pam) a 9-inch by 13-inch cake pan and set it aside.

Hannah's 1st Note:  This is a lot easier with an electric mixer, but you can also make it by hand.

Beat the sugar, eggs, vegetable oil, and vanilla together in a large bowl.  Mix in the sour cream (or yogurt.)  Add the baking soda, cinnamon (and cardamom if you used it) and salt.  Mix them in thoroughly.

Add the can of crushed pineapple (including the liquid) and the chopped nuts to your bowl.  Mix them in thoroughly.

Add the flour by half-cup increments, mixing after each addition.

Grate the carrots.  (This is very easy with a food processor, but you can also do it with a hand grater.)  Measure out 2 cups of grated carrots.  Pack them down in the cup when you measure them.

Mix in the carrots BY HAND.  Grated carrots tend to get caught on the beaters of electric mixers.

Spread the batter in your prepared cake pan and bake it at 350 degrees F. for 50 minutes, or until a cake tester (I use a food pick that's a little longer than a toothpick,) inserted one inch from the center of the cake comes out clean.

Let the cake cool in the cake pan on a wire rack.  When it's completely cool, frost with cream cheese frosting while it's still in the pan.

 CREAM CHEESE FROSTING
1/2 cup softened butter
8-ounce package softened cream cheese
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 cups confectioner's (powdered) sugar (no need to sift unless it's got big lumps)

Mix the softened butter with the softened cream cheese and the vanilla until the mixture is smooth.

Hannah's 2nd Note:  Do this next step at room temperature.  If you heated the cream cheese or the butter to soften it, make sure it's cooled down before you continue.

Add the confectioner's sugar in half-cup increments until the frosting is of proper spreading consistency.  (You'll use all, or almost all, of the sugar.)

Hannah's 3rd Note:  If you're good with the pastry bag, remove 1/3 cup of frosting and save it in a little bowl to pipe on frosting carrots and stems.

With a frosting knife (or rubber spatula if you prefer) drop large dollops of frosting over the surface of your cooled cake.  I usually end up with somewhere between 6 and 12 dollops.  The dollops are like little stacks of frosting - you'll spread neighboring stacks together, working your way from one end to the other, until you've frosted the whole cake.  (This dollop method prevents uneven frosting thickness and "tearing" of the surface of your cake as you "pull" frosting from one end to the other.)

If you decided to use the pastry bag to decorate your cake, mix most of the remaining frosting with one drop of yellow food coloring and one drop of red food coloring.  Mix it thoroughly to make an orange frosting and pipe little carrots on top to decorate your cake.  You can save a bit of uncolored frosting to color green and dab green stems on the large end of the carrots.

 

A Word of Warning about COCOA

When cocoa is used in any of my recipes, make sure to use plain old American cocoa (I usually use Hershey’s unsweetened cocoa.) There are many designer cocoas on the market. They’re wonderful in their own right, but they won’t work in my recipes. Make sure you don’t buy cocoa mix, which has powdered milk and a sweetener added. Stay away from Dutch process cocoa – it has alkaline added. Also beware of cocoas that are mixed with ground chocolate or other flavorings. They won’t work either. Things were simpler in my grandmother’s day (and she’s the one who gave me the Cocoa Snaps recipe.) If you’re in doubt, check the ingredients that are listed on the container of cocoa. It should say "cocoa" and nothing else.