Moist & fluffy homemade Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting will become your new favourite recipe!
This carrot cake recipe is one you will fall in love with time and time again! The perfect balance of flavour with a hint of cinnamon, soft crunch from nuts, crushed pineapple and an incredibly moist crumb smothered all over with a silky smooth cream cheese frosting.
The perfect texture, the best flavour, easy and foolproof Carrot Cake!
CARROT CAKE
Finding a really good carrot cake is hit or miss. They are either too dry, contain too much fruit, not enough flavour or go overboard with spices. One bite is all it takes for you to be hooked on this one. This is The One. Hands down the best Carrot Cake you will ever have in your life!
You don’t need mad baking skills to make our recipe and you certainly don’t need to be a baker of any kind (see above picture for terrible frosting and decorating example). If you’re like me and cannot frost or decorate a cake to save yourself, be completely comfortable in knowing that any type of decorating you do will be looked over when your family, friends or guests sink their teeth into a slice of this little piece of heaven.
Especially when that creamy cream cheese frosting is mixed through every mouthful.
HOW TO MAKE CARROT CAKE FROM SCRATCH
Dry ingredients are combined together first.
Wet ingredients are whisked together next along with sugar
Combine both until the batter is smooth.
Fold in grated carrots, nuts and sultanas. We love pecans but you can use walnuts, cashews, almonds or peanuts.
You’ll need two 9-inch round cake pans to create your layers, then bake for 40-45 minutes.
HOW TO MAKE MOIST CARROT CAKE
The texture in this carrot cake is unbelievable. Yes, it’s fluffy and light as mentioned above, but its moist texture is unforgettable. Three main ingredients help make this carrot cake super moist:
- Vegetable oil (or canola oil can be used)
- Brown sugar
- Fruit puree: Crushed pineapple or applesauce. We chose the pineapple option after trying it with applesauce and found blending crushed pineapple for a couple of seconds in a magic bullet or blender yielded the best results. You can also leave the fruit out and substitute with melted butter. You can’t taste the fruit in this at all.
HOW TO KNOW WHEN IT IS READY
Insert a toothpick or a wooden skewer into the centre of each carrot cake. It should come out clean. Let the cakes cool completely before frosting. If the cakes have a little warmth in the centres, the frosting will become runny while you spread it on!
HOW TO LAYER (without cutting)
Often times, cakes come out of the oven with a perfect dome on the top. Instead of cutting the tops to make them even, flip the cake upside down onto your serving plate. Frost the first layer, then flip the second layer (upside down) onto that frosted first layer. Cover evenly with frosting using a rubber spatula.
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Carrot Cake
Ingredients
Carrot Cake:
- 2 1/4 cups (295 g) all-purpose or plain flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 3/4 teaspoon salt
- 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon ground ginger
- 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1 cup (250 ml) vegetable oil
- 1/2 cup (110 g) crushed pineapple, or unsweetened apple sauce
- 1 cup (200 g) lightly packed light brown sugar
- 1 cup (200 g) white granulated sugar
- 1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
- 4 large eggs
- 2 1/2 cups (250 g) grated carrots, (from about 2-3 large carrots)
- 1 cup (100 g) crushed pecans or walnuts, divided (optional)
- 1/2 cup (60 g) sultanas or raisins, (optional)
Cream Cheese Frosting:
- 8 ounces (250 g) cream cheese, softened to room temperature
- 6 ounces (170 g) butter, softened to room temperature
- 4 cups cups powdered sugar, sifted if lumpy (plus more if needed)
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Instructions
CARROT CAKE:
- Heat the oven to 350º F (175°C). Lightly grease two 9-inch round cake pans and line the base of each pan with parchment paper.
- Combine together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg in a bowl until well combined.
- In a separate bowl whisk the oil, pineapple (or apple sauce), sugars and vanilla. Beat in eggs one at a time until well combined. 
Stir the dry ingredients into the wet mixture until the batter is smooth, while scraping the batter from the sides of the bowl. Fold in grated carrots, 3/4 cup of nuts and sultanas.
- Divide the batter between the prepared cake pans. Bake for 40-45 minutes, or when a toothpick inserted into the centre of each cake comes out clean.
- Let cool in pans for 30 minutes. Transfer to cooling racks peeling the paper off the base of each cake as you go. Allow to cool completely before frosting.
CREAM CHEESE FROSTING:
- In large bowl, beat together softened cream cheese and butter, scraping down sides of bowl when needed, for 2-3 minutes until smooth and creamy. (Use a hand mixer.)
- Stir in vanilla and powdered sugar, adding more sugar if needed until frosting is thick and spreadable.
- Frost cooled cake and top with remaining crushed nuts for decoration (optional).
Claire Mary Jenkins says
I had a cream tea for friends and gambled on making this last week. It’s the first time I’ve made a carrot cake and honestly it was the best, most moist , carrot cake I’ve ever tasted. If I was going to go into business as a baker, this would be the star of the show! I froze half of it as it comes out a good size. The texture of the frosting didn’t change on de-frosting and it was good for 4 days afterwards. I love to cook but didn’t consider myself great at baking……..until now! B-). Your tip on inverting domed cakes helped a lot with the overall presentation too. Thanks again Karina!
Claire Mary Jenkins says
Just made this. The cake is excellent, really moist and flavour-ful. For me, there was too much sweet icing but it looks great!
I’ll definitely make it again.
Thanks again Karina
Susan says
Second time I’ve made carrot cake using this recipe. Cakes are amazing. At first wasn’t sure about the pineapple but it works!! I’ll never use a different recipe 😊 x
Rose says
this has to be by far the best carrot cake recipe ever. it is absolutely delicious. Actually its the best cake I’ve made. I’m writing this review with gooey sticky fingers as I assemble the cake together with the icing. I couldnt wait to tell everyone !!
TRC says
I love carrot cakes with nuts and raisins but my sister doesn’t and I was making this for her birthday. What sold me on trying this recipe over several others I looked at was because they had tried variations on it (apple sauce vs pineapple) to determine which was better.
Lets just say that the prep took a LOT longer than listed. Grating carrots takes a while. Especially when my 10 year-old niece was doing it. I did the whole prep of the batter while that was occuring.
The cake was amazing and everyone loved it. Very soft and rich.
I used the pineapple (crushed from a can) and do think blending it to break it down more would have been an improvement. I just couldn’t be bothered to get out the blender for half a cup of pineapple. We also added some shredded coconut to it to lend some extra flavor and used this as a garnish on top.
I doubled the frosting recipe because running out would have been annoying. I don’t bake much and can’t remember the last time I iced a cake. I didn’t use all of it but I think we used more than the standard recipe amount.
I had to stick the frosting it in the freezer part way through for about 5 minutes to get it to harden up a bit because it was kind of melting as we were icing the cake. That worked perfectly.
Once we were done, normally, I would have put the cake in the fridge but it was full so I stuck the whole thing in the freezer for a while, probably about 30 minutes while I was off doing other things. It helped harden things up and and set the frosting and didn’t freeze at all.
It was a huge hit so I totally recommend this recipe.
Marcia says
We love carrot cake and I tried this recipe on the weekend and it was a hit…kids loved and could not stop eating. Moist and light cake, just perfect.
Thanks for sharing it…
Stacey says
Made this cake for my housemates 30th and it was an absolute winner! I was worried the texture would be too fluffy as I prefer a denser cake, but it was PERFECT! And so moist!
We have a very strong oven so I cooked the cake for 15 min less than recommended.
I also added one cup less of sugar and a tiny bit less butter to the icing, and everyone said it was perfect.
Thankyou for another delicious recipe !!!!!!