Cake That's Not Carrot Cake But Still Didn't Break My Heart

I love cake. I don’t think I can even begin to express to you how much I love cake. Cake makes my world go round.

I wanted carrot cake, because it’s my favorite. However, I really didn’t have the energy to stand around grating carrots for my homemade carrot cake. So, I went to the grocery store to get one of those box cakes. They didn’t have carrot cake.

Can you believe that? No carrot cake?

*sigh* I bought myself a spice cake mix and two blocks of cream cheese instead and carried it home. Then, I got to thinking, spice cake isn’t really what I wanted either. How to fix it?

(I should have taken a picture but the cake was pounced upon before I thought of it. Sorry.)

Anyway, how to fix it? Raid the pantry.

The result was wonderful. Here goes…

You will need:

1 spice cake mix

2 blocks of cream cheese - softened

1 stick of butter - softened

About 3 ½ cups of powdered sugar

1 small can of crushed pineapple drained with juice reserved

7 ounce bag of pecan pieces

½ of a small bag of coconut

Vegetable oil

Orange juice

Eggs

1 tablespoon of Vanilla extract

Mix the spice cake according to package directions adding the oil and eggs – EXCEPT – where it calls for water, use the reserved pineapple juice and orange juice to make the amount required in the instructions. When the batter is mixed well, fold in the coconut and pecans.

Bake according to package directions. Don’t forget to grease and flour your pan!

While the cake is baking, make up your icing. Keep in mind, I like my cream cheese icing extra cream cheesy tasting and a little less sugary tasting. That’s why I use two blocks where most recipes only call for one.

First blend the butter, vanilla, and cream cheese. Then, while continuing to mix, add the powdered sugar, a little at a time, and mix until fluffy.  Or, you can dump it all in at once. But, don’t forget to call and invite me over first so I can laugh at the cloud of powdered sugar that explodes all over your kitchen and then quickly leave before you’re ready to clean it up.  J

You can use more or less powdered sugar here depending on your preference.  This makes a rather large batch, but we like lots of icing on our cake and I needed enough to ice 2 nine inch round cakes.

Note: a more standard cream cheese icing recipe uses 1 block of cream cheese, 1 stick of butter, and all of 1 small box of powdered sugar