Sounds to me like it’s within the bounds of “carrot cake,” then. I imagine it also makes the cake feel a bit moister, perhaps? It makes me feel like it’s kind of like how some people add applesauce for moisture, but also to keep the oil down, or something like that.
Stereotypes as a method of judging people: Evil, or at least definitely wrong.
Stereotypes as a method of judging recipes: Often useful, and often right. But not always.
I am as far lefty/liberal as it’s medically safe to be, and even I am not in the habit of asking the cake how it feels about various issues - even when those issues might be integral to the cake’s well-being. 
Canned pineapple ONLY goes in the garbage. I hate it. Fresh pineapple is awesome, cooked is nasty. Same with spinach and tomatoes.
Thanks for the recipe Mind’s Eye!
Exactly!
Man, I’m just getting worried now that being quoted out of context, posters skimming this thread will actually think that I add raisins to chocolate chip cookies! :eek:
Yeah–I agree that a lot of the folks who have never encountered it have encountered it unknowingly. Pineapple on its own is apretty strongly-flavored, but when combined with carrot-cake spices and cream cheese frosting and all those other goodies, its signature flavor fades into the background, and it’s mostly there for its basic properties (sweet, sour, wet). We’re not talking about a chunk of candied pineapple in a fruit cake, we’re talking about a background ingredient.
I could buy that if it’s somehow made so fine that you can’t detect it at all physically, or if it seems like it could be a carrot piece. But, if it’s still in some sort of chunk form, I don’t see how it wouldn’t be noticed.
And given the existence of recipes without it (which includes the one I ate the most, made by my grandmother), I don’t find it hard to believe that some people never encounter it.
I once worked at a bakery and made a chocolate cake with chopped-up canned beets, sort of on a dare. Nobody noticed.
That’s pretty well in keeping with what I said :).