My nina, Soledad "Daling" Quinene, makes the best carrot cake. Her mom, Natividad Ignacio, gave her the recipe. Nina and Nino had bigh Thanksgiving parties in South Carolina. The three dishes I looked forward to were deer kelaguen, teriyaki deet, and Nina's carrot cake. It is dark, divine, and delicious. I actually prefer this recipe without frosting.
Nina says the pineapple, walnuts and raisins are optional, however I don't remember eating her carrot cake without the options. The picture above includes all the goodies! If you omit the pineapple, check the cake to see if it is done around 40 minutes.
from a fan: "I have to tell you, I made the carrot cake over the weekend and OMG! OMG! It was mmmmm yummmy! I made some slight changes just because it was what I had on hand (cranberry dry fruit, because I was too lazy to go store hopping to find raisins, & the raisins they did have at one grocery store was a really really big container (3lbs) and I really did not want to store that much raisins. It is not something I use often. And then I had about 1/2 cup of shredded carrots left (because I did not want to waste it) I folded the carrots into my coolwhip/cream cheese topping. That was so yummy too!!!! Thank you for sharing!!!"
1 – 20 oz. can of crushed pineapple (drained in a colander for 10 minutes)
Set 3
2 c. grated carrots (use the medium sized hole, not the small)
Set 4
½ cup hand-chopped walnuts (not the finely chopped walnuts in a bag….get the walnut halves or pieces, then coarsely chop with a knife)
½ cup raisins
Set 5
1 – 8 oz. package of cream cheese, room temp.
2 – 8 oz. tubs of Cool Whip, cold but not frozen (thaw in the fridge)
Tools: 1 large bowl, 1 medium bowl, electric beater, rubber spatula, 9 x 13 baking dish, non-stick pan spray
DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
1. Mix all the dry ingredients from set 1 together in a medium bowl. Set aside.
2. Beat all of set 2 together in a large bowl with an electric beater.
3. Add the carrots to the bowl of wet ingredients then mix again with beaters.
4. Pour the dry ingredients into the bowl of wet ingredients and beat, combining thoroughly. The batter may seem kind of fache' or wet, but that is fine.
5. Add the raisins and walnuts, incorporating well with a rubber spatula; scrape the sides of the bowl too.
6. Coat baking dish with non-stick spray.
7. Pour the batter into the pan and bake for about 50 minutes, until toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.
8. Cool the cake completely.
9. In a medium bowl, beat the cream cheese.
10. Add all of the Cool Whip and beat together until well combined.
11. Spread over cake. Enjoy........it is super yummy!!!
Effective March 2021, PaulaQ will begin replacing Canola and vegetable/seed oils in recipes with pure lard from Reverence Farm, coconut oil, and avocado oil.
