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| Easy semi-homemade carrot cake. |
The Food Channel used to air Semi-Homemade with Sandra Lee. She combined store-bought items with fresh ingredients to make foods that tasted like they were from scratch.
I looked online for a carrot cake recipe that started with a boxed mix. I chose Easy Pineapple Carrot Cake from the Eat at Home Cooks website.
Easy Pineapple Carrot Cake
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| The ingredients ready to go. |
• 1 carrot cake mix
• 1-2 small carrots grated
• 8 oz crushed pineapple drained
• 3 eggs
• 2/3 cup vegetable oil
• 1 cup milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
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| Fresh carrots and canned pineapple. |
My modifications are in italics.
Mix all of the cake ingredients together with an electric mixer until well blended. I read the directions on the Duncan Hines box and it only called for one and a half cups liquid so I reduced the oil from 2/3 to 1/2 half cup. I used a spoon rather than a mixer.
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| I used a spoon rather than a mixer. |
Bake at 350 degrees F for 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
Because my batter was deeper in one rectangular pan, it took about 50 minutes for the toothpick to come out clean. Towards the end, I checked every five minutes.
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| Cooling. |
Rather than making cream cheese frosting from scratch, I used Duncan Hines Creamy Cream Cheese Frosting.
This one cake gave us dessert for four nights. It made a nice, but not overly sweet, end to our warmed up freezer meal entrees.
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| Easy semi-homemade pineapple carrot cake hits the spot! |
What are you making to satisfy your sweet tooth? -- Margy
That looks delicious and carrot cake is a favourite of ours. I've been making muffins, chocolate cake, scones and more .... all the things we don't really need to be eating but are :)
ReplyDeleteIt was really good. The frosting was a bit sweet for my taste, but made the cake so easy to make. - Margy
Deletepineapple carrot cake is one of my favorites
ReplyDeleteMine too, and this way was so easy. One can of pineapple goes to make two cakes so I bought another mix for later. - Margy
DeleteThe combination of carrots & pineapple must be delicious!
ReplyDeleteI found the semi home made concept pretty interesting......
I like semi-homemade to make meal preparation easier. - Margy
Delete...does it come in a low cal version?
ReplyDeleteOh, I wish! But would it taste as good? - Margy
DeleteSounds yummy .. Bill is borderline Type 2 Diabetic, so we *try* to forego sugar as much as possible. I bet I haven’t bought a cake mix in over 10 years. But. We do eat an ice cream sandwich occasionally or a piece or two of chocolate. ... so it might be that giving up baked desserts is due to laziness as much as to heath concerns ))). . Oh, I just remembered, I do make a fruit crisp for dessert (and next days breakfast) once or twice a season, when we have apples and blueberries in great abundance (from daughter’s acreage).
ReplyDeleteI wish I had a source for fresh apples. I love to eat a cold, tart, crisp one. - Margy
DeleteI bet the mixture of pineapple with carrot cake mix is absolutely delicious ~ pinned!
ReplyDeleteA carrot cake from scratch isn't much harder to make, but here in the city where I have fewer supplies this makes it easier to make. - Margy
DeleteI think with carrots in it, you can count this as a serving of vegetables. ;-)
ReplyDeleteI think I remember when they were providing information about school lunches that ketchup was considered a vegetable. In that case, of course carrot cake is both a serving of fruit and vegetable. - Margy
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