Imma plead temporary insaanity here

[yellowdogintexas]

6. I love carrot cake and have a slightly different version

it is from the Silver Palate Cookbook.

Butter, for greasing the pan
3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
3 cups sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon baking soda
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1 1/2 cups corn oil
4 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups shelled walnuts, chopped
1 1/2 cups shredded coconut
1 1/2 cups puréed cooked carrots
3/4 cup drained crushed pineapple
Cream Cheese Frosting (recipe follows)

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease two 9-inch springform pans.

2. Sift the dry ingredients into a bowl. Add the oil, eggs, and vanilla. Beat well. Fold in the walnuts, coconut, carrots, and pineapple.

3. Pour the batter into the prepared pans. Set on the center rack of the oven and bake until the edges have pulled away from the sides and a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean, 50 minutes.

4. Cool on a cake rack for 3 hours. Fill and frost the cake with the cream cheese frosting.

Differences: cinnamon is the only spice although the other ones sound good too.
walnuts instead of pecans
cooked pureed carrots instead of shredded (a pound bag of baby carrots will do it; I steam mine)
add: 1 small can of crushed pineapple, drained well and
1 cup of shredded coconut

Recipe says bake in 2 9 inch pans HA! It fills 3 9 inch pans; however I bought 10 inch pans just for this cake.