Carrot cake on a headstone

When an acquaintance of mine told me that a headstone in Memorial Park Cemetery in Cape Girardeau County bore a carrot cake recipe, I was both delighted and curious -- was this an "over my dead body" situation, or a "share it with the world"?

Cemeteries are a favorite of mine, as they're peaceful places to memorialize and put monuments to those who have gone before us. They tell us about what people would like to remember, for as long as the stones last, or as long as the funds last to keep replacing and repairing them. In Cape Girardeau County, cemetery sizes range from single burials on private land to city-maintained sites with thousands of burials, with varying levels of maintenance and funding put toward their care. No central authority exists for all cemeteries in the county or state, so it's up to individuals or organizations to keep the stones clear.

At the Cape Girardeau County Archive Center, we house several collections, among them some information a team of staff and volunteers collected about a decade ago on some of the nearly 300 cemeteries in the county.

A volunteer with the LDS Church in Cape Girardeau, Karen Rouse, had contacted me about this information, asking if she and a team of volunteers could make it more widely available by adding the information to billiongraves.com. During our conversation, I mentioned the carrot cake recipe I'd heard about. We discovered a shared love of carrot cake -- and a shared curiosity about this recipe.

The more I read about Kimette DeCota, and the more closely I read her recipe, the more guilty I felt about my initial reaction to learning her recipe was on her headstone. Clearly, she was a much-loved person who was a shining light -- across the bottom of her headstone was the legend "Serve with Love," which I thought was just perfect to describe how she lived her life and how she would want her recipe to be enjoyed.

Which brings me to the cake. I love to bake, but admittedly I am not by any stretch a gourmet chef. Give me a good box mix and some chocolate chips to stir in, and I consider that a pretty decent effort. I started reading this recipe and quickly realized that it wasn't a simple list of ingredients the way I had seen other headstone recipes represented. No, this came complete with instructions and a frosting recipe.

In the end, after using pans provided by Archives Assistant Tiffany Fleming, as I do not own two springform pans myself, I think I managed a decent recreation of Kimette's recipe.

I made it exactly to recipe specifications this time, except I did not follow the suggestion to double the frosting recipe. I wish I had. It's a bit unusual for a carrot cake, with the carrots cooked and pureed instead of raw and shredded, and coconut and pineapple in the batter, but even so, I would call it a dense, rich cake that wasn't too heavy, at all. I invited a few people over to the Archive Center one afternoon to sample the cake, and we all agreed that it was delicious, in spite of it being my first attempt.

I hope I honored Kimette's legacy. As far as the cake goes, it's pretty delicious.

Read Kimette DeCota's obituary at semissourian.com/story/2114405.html.

Kim's Carrot Cake

• Butter, for greasing the pan
• 3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
• 3 cups sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tbsp baking soda
• 1 tbsp ground cinnamon
• 1-1/2 cups corn oil
• 4 large eggs, lightly beaten
• 1 tbsp vanilla extract
• 1-1/2 cups shredded coconut
• 1-1/2 cups shelled walnuts, chopped
• 1-1/3 cups pureed cooked carrots
• 3/4 cup drained crushed pineapple

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

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

Pour 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.

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

Cream cheese frosting

Doubling the frosting recipe is highly recommended.

• 8 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
• 6 tbsp unsalted butter, room temperature
• 3 cup confectioners' sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• Juice of 1/2 lemon, optional

Cream the cream cheese and butter in a mixing bowl.

Slowly sift in the confectioners' sugar and continue beating until ingredients are fully incorporated. The mixture should be free of lumps.

Stir in the vanilla, and lemon juice if desired.

Serve with love.