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Moist and fluffy homemade Carrot Cake with cream cheese frosting will become your new favourite dessert. Simple, yet full of flavour, you’ve never had carrot cake like this before!
You are guaranteed to fall in love with this fluffy, creamy carrot cake recipe! The perfect balance of sweet and tangy with a hint of cinnamon, crunchy nuts, crushed pineapple and an incredibly moist crumb, smothered with a silky smooth cream cheese frosting.
CARROT CAKE
While we are big fans of our Best Fudgy Chocolate Cake, Hershey’s Chocolate Cake and our Best Red Velvet Cake, this carrot cake recipe has to… well… take the cake.
Finding a really good carrot cake can be hit or miss. They are either too dry, contain too much fruit, not enough flavour or go overboard with spices. With this carrot cake recipe, one bite is all it takes to get you hooked. This is 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 an avid baker. If you’re like me, and cannot frost or decorate a cake to save yourself, be completely safe in the knowledge that any type of decorating you do won’t matter at all once your family and friends sink their teeth into this little slice of heaven; especially when you get a heaping mouthful of that tangy cream cheese frosting!
HOW TO MAKE CARROT CAKE
Combine dry ingredients.
Whisk wet ingredients, 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 DO YOU MAKE CARROT CAKE MOIST
The texture of this carrot cake is unbelievable. Yes, it’s fluffy and light as mentioned above, but its moisture has to be its most memorable quality. Three main ingredients contribute to the cake’s moist consistency:
- Vegetable oil (or canola oil)
- Brown sugar
- Fruit puree: crushed pineapple or applesauce. We chose pineapple after trying it with applesauce. We found that 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 the cake at all.
HOW LONG TO BAKE CARROT CAKE
Bake for 45 minutes or until a toothpick or wooden skewer inserted into the centre of the carrot cake, comes 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 icing.
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.
LOOKING FOR MORE CAKE RECIPES? TRY THESE!
Best Fudgy Chocolate Cake
Best Red Velvet Cake
Carrot Cake Cheesecake
Hot Fudge Chocolate Pudding Cake
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Carrot Cake
Ingredients
Carrot Cake:
- 2 1/4 cups 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 vegetable oil
- 1/2 cup crushed pineapple or unsweetened apple sauce
- 1 cup light brown sugar lightly packed
- 1 cup white granulated sugar
- 1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
- 4 large eggs
- 2 1/2 cups grated carrots from about 2-3 large carrots
- 1 cup crushed pecans or walnuts, divided, optional
- 1/2 cup raisins or sultanas, optional
Cream Cheese Frosting:
- 8 ounces cream cheese softened to room temperature
- 6 ounces butter softened to room temperature
- 4 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).
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
This is the best cheesecake I have ever made, this recipe is a keeper. Thank you for such a great recipe.
This carrot cake is delicious, lovely and light and flavourful, this cake it’s a keeper. Thank you. Xx
Wow thank you soo much for this awesome carrot cake recipe love love love it best ever💝 Will definitely try out your other recipes thanks
This carrot cake recipe and brownies recipe are out of this world. As a baker, I’ve had repeat orders for this carrot cake and brownies. Thank you so much Carina. Your recipes have changed the course of my bakery business. Thank you so so much!
The lumps of butter in the icing but apart from that please can you publish a book with all of your recipes because they are fantastic
Made this cake for Easter. The cake was a hit!! Came out so delicious! I did make some changes to it: coconut oil instead of vegetable oil, no nuts or raisins in the batter, and added a pinch of clove to the spice mix. I toasted chopped pecans and walnuts and pressed them on the sides of the frosted cake for decoration and texture. I absolutely love your recipes! The cake was moist, a perfect balance of spice and sweetness. Super easy to make and easy to modify. Thanks for another awesome recipe!
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 !!
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.
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…
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 !!!!!!