Two of my granddaughters are born on the same date, two years apart. This year I decided to bake them a huge cupcake for their birthday.

Rather than make my traditional chocolate cake I decided to make a carrot cake instead. Rather than grate the carrots, I put them in my new Insta Ace blender (Pictured here.) Wow! In only two pulses I had two cups of chopped carrots.

I pulled out a can of pineapple. The recipe called for chunks. I didn’t have chunks, so into the blender they went. Bam! Instant chunks.

Rather than chop my cup of pecans, I let the blender do it. I think I kinda like this new machine!

Here’s the recipe if you’re interested.

Carrot Cake

Ingredients for cake:

• 2 cups sugar
• ¾ cup olive oil
• 3 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• ¾ cup milk
• 2 cups carrots, raw, grated
• 1 cup nuts
• 1 (15 ounce) can pineapple chunks
• 2 cups flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1 ½ teaspoons salt

Icing:

• 1 cup pecans
• ½ cup butter
• 1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 4 cups powdered sugar

Directions:

• Step 1

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9×13 inch baking pan. Set aside. (In my case I used a special large cupcake pan.)

• Step 2

In a large bowl, mix together sugar, oil, eggs, vanilla, and buttermilk. Stir in carrots, coconut, vanilla, and pineapple. In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt; gently stir into carrot mixture. Stir in chopped nuts. Spread batter into prepared pan.

• Step 3

Bake for 55 minutes or until toothpick inserted into cake comes out clean. Remove from oven, and set aside to cool. For the pan I used, I baked it about 40 minutes.

• Step 4

In a medium mixing bowl, combine butter or margarine, cream cheese, vanilla, and confectioners sugar. Blend until creamy. Frost cake while still in the pan. I let the cake cool completely, then removed it from the pan and iced it. Hint: if you’re going to drive somewhere with the big cupcake, you might want to take it in two pieces and ice it at the destination!

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