As you wish! I don't even like carrot cake (I'm firmly team pie) but others seem to, so it's nice to have on hand.
OK so preheat oven to 350 F, and in the first bowl mix:
-2 cups sugar
-3/4 cup oil (I'd suggest walnut oil if you wanna be fancy)
-3 eggs, room temperature
-1 tsp vanilla (I use Mexican vanilla personally)
-3/4 cup buttermilk, room temperature
To that, add 1 cup flaked coconut, 1 can crushed pineapple (with juice), and 2 cups grated carrots (make sure to squish all the carrot liquid out).
In a separate bowl mix:
-2 cups AP flour
-2 tsp baking soda
-2 tsp cinnamon
-1/8 tsp nutmeg
-1 1/2 tsp salt
Stir the flour mixture into the wet carroty mixture and then stir in 1 cup of chopped walnuts, if you want. Don't overmix the batter (peoeple are always overmixing the batter!)
Pour the batter into three 9-inch cake pans (use parchment paper cut into rounds if you want to make it easier on yourself), or a 9x13 sheet pan. Or muffin tins. Bake for 40 minutes. It may be done much sooner than that though. Ok, next..
The cream cheese frosting:
I personally hate overly-sweet frostings, especially overly sweet cream cheese frostings so I improvised this one.
Cream together with a hand mixer:
-Two 8 oz. packs of cream cheese (softened; just put em on the counter a couple hours beforehand)
-1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
Then gradually add:
-2 to 2 1/2 cups sifted powdered sugar
-1 tsp vanilla
-A glug of good-quality maple syrup (I can't read my own handwriting on this recipe, so your guess is as good as mine. Just add enough to give it a very subtle maple flavor.)
-Orange zest (maybe a tablespoon? Not so much that it tastes overtly orangey-- just enough to brighten the flavor a bit.)
aand that's it. It's a little bit time-consuming.
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