Carrot Cake Recipe

Carrot Cake! With a touch of cinnamon, gentle crunch from nuts, extremely moist crumb and piled excessive with the fluffiest ever cream cheese frosting, this has the right texture and flavour. Straightforward and foolproof, completely to-die for!

Carrot Cake

This Carrot Cake is from a reader, the beautiful Dorothy of Tennessee within the States, a long-time reader of RecipeTin Eats. She promised it was useless simple, foolproof, extremely moist with a heavenly flavour.

One chew was all it took for me to ditch the recipe I’d been utilizing all my life up till that second. This was The One. Arms down the most effective Carrot Cake I’ve ever had in my life!

I find it irresistible a lot, in reality, that I’ve additionally simply revealed a cupcake model too!

Why you’ll love this Carrot Cake recipe

1. The cake itself just isn’t too candy, with much less sugar than most recipes;

2. The cake is moist, however not doughy or “mud-cake” like;

3. The refined  crunch from pecans and coconut within the cake. The textural distinction with the crumb is absolutely terrific; and

4. There’s loads of frosting!!

Right here’s what you want for this Carrot Cake. The “secret components” on this are:

• Crushed  pineapple (canned) – this provides to the moistness of the crumb, in addition to sweetness and flavour. We’re going to make use of the entire pineapple and among the juice; and

• Coconut and walnuts (or pecans) – they add a refined gentle crunch which offers nice textural distinction on this cake that has a really gentle crumb.

No butter! Do you know – oil makes muffins moist and butter provides flavour. On this recipe, we don’t want butter as a result of there’s all types of flavour from the opposite components so we simply use oil.

Simply use a normal field grater to grate the carrot. Then it’s so simple as mixing the Dry components, mixing the Moist, then mixing them collectively.

I’ve made a 2 layer cake right here however you might additionally make one rectangle single layer cake.

There’s simply no query – fluffy cream cheese frosting is the BEST frosting for Carrot Cake! Right here’s what you want:

• Cream cheese – use BLOCK, not the spreadable cream cheese in tubs (too gentle);

• Softened butter – softened however not tremendous gentle / borderline melting;

• Icing sugar aka powdered sugar – 🇦🇺use gentle icing sugar, NOT pure icing sugar (which is used for issues like royal icing ie units arduous); and

• Vanilla.

There’s no secret trick to creating fluffy cream cheese frosting. Simply beat, beat, beat till fluffy! It can take 3 to five minutes to make the frosting tremendous fluffy.

No cake comes out of the oven with a superbly stage floor.

However fairly than bothering to chop the highest to make it stage, simply flip the cake the wrong way up earlier than frosting.

You’ll nonetheless get a slight dome within the center with this cake nevertheless it’s much less pronounced than in case you frosted it with out turning it the wrong way up.

And so I current to you, Dorothy’s Carrot Cake, with 2 layers, although it’s marvellous as a single layer sheet pan rectangle cake – goes additional and there’s a thicker layer of frosting on the floor.

Thanks Dorothy, for sharing your great recipe with us!!! I’m so honoured! – Johnsat x

Carrot Cake Recipe

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Serves: 12 Prep Time: 30 minutes Cooking Time: 30 minutes 30 minutes

Nutrition facts: 709 calories 20 grams fat

Rating: 5.0/5

( 1 voted )

Ingredients

• 440g / 20 oz can crushed pineapple , drained but RESERVE juice (Note 1)
• 1/4 cup (65 ml) reserved canned pineapple juice (from canned pineapple above)
• 3/4 cup (185 ml) milk , at room temperature (full or low fat)
• 1 tsp white vinegar (or lemon juice or other clear vinegar, (Note 2)
• 3 eggs (55g/2oz each)
• 1 1/2 cups (265g) brown sugar (loosely packed)
• 1/2 cup (125 ml) vegetable oil (or canola)
• 2 cups (300g) flour , plain / all purpose
• 2 tsp baking soda (aka bi carb soda, Note 3) (NOT BAKING POWDER)
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 tsp cinnamon powder
• 2 cups grated carrot , about 2 carrots, peeled (Note 4)
• 1/4 cup coconut , shredded or desiccated (plain / unsweetened)
• 1/2 cup walnuts or pecans , roughly chopped
• 180g / 6oz cream cheese , at room temperature (Note 5)
• 225g / 1 cup unsalted butter , softened
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 4 cups (480g) icing sugar / powdered sugar , sifted if clumpy (Note 6)

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 180°C/350°F (all oven types). Grease and line two 20-22.5 cm/8 – 9" round pans OR a 9 x 13" / 22 x 33cm pan with baking/parchment paper. (Note 7)
2. Drain crushed pineapple well, reserving the juice. Measure out 1/4 cup of pineapple juice.
3. Whisk Dry ingredients in a large bowl.
4. In a separate bowl, whisk together the milk, vinegar, eggs, sugar, oil and the 1/4 cup pinepple juice from Step 2.
5. Stir in carrot, crushed pineapple, coconut and pecans into the Wet ingredients bowl.
6. Pour Wet into Dry ingredients, stir until flour is incorporated.
7. Pour into prepared pan(s). Bake round cakes for 35 minutes, rectangle cake for 40 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean and the cake is golden on top.
8. Rest for 10 minutes in the pan before turning out onto a cooling rack. Frost once completely cool.
9. Beat together cream cheese, butter and vanilla until smooth. Then beat in the icing sugar in 2 batches until it is well incorporated and the frosting is fluffy – about 3 minutes on speed 7 stand mixer.
10. Flip one cake upside down on serving platter (for flat surface). Spread with 1/3 frosting. Place 2nd cake upside down on frosting. Frost top and sides with remaining frosting.
11. If cooler than 25°C/77°C and not humid, ok to keep cake in airtight container not in fridge. If very humid OR warmer than 25°C/77°C, store in fridge (Note 8).

Notes

Note about different measures: Cups and other cooking measures differ slightly from country to country. This cake has been tested  ensure it works using both metric (Australia, UK, Europe) and US measures.
1. Crushed pineapple – 20oz = 565g, not 440g. However, in Australia, crushed pineapple comes in 440g so I just use 1 x 440g can. The first time I made it, I measured 565g out accurately, but the 2nd time I just used 1 x 440g can and did not notice a difference.
2. Vinegar (sub lemon juice) – this gives baking soda/bi-carb a rapid activation boost to give this cake rise. Required in this recipe because it’s such a moist cake.
3. Baking soda / bi carb – this is about 3x stronger than baking powder. Can sub 6 tsp baking powder but cake will have slightly less rise.
4. Carrot – grate then measure using cups (packed in firmly). Avoid long strands of carrot in cake by holding the carrot perpendicular i.e. 90 degrees against the grater, rather than on an angle.
5. Cream Cheese – use block, not the soft spreadable cream cheese in tubs.
6. Icing sugar – called powdered sugar in the United States. Use soft icing sugar, not pure icing sugar.
7. Cake pan: DO NOT try this in one round cake pan, the depth of the batter is too great, the cake comes out too dense. Must be split between two pans, or 1 rectangle pan (Note 1 for size). Plenty of frosting for either. Cake is so moist, it’s terrific as a single level cake without extra frosting sandwiched in between – and goes further too. 
If you want to do this cakes as cupcakes, I have you covered! → Carrot Cake Cupcakes
8. Storage – cake is so moist, the crumb actually gets semi “wet” if not stored in fridge when it’s super hot and humid (ie Sydney summer!). Also frosting gets too soft. Slice fridge cold (cuts more neatly too), then let it come to room temp before serving (~5 min).
9. Nutrition per serving, including all frosting.

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Sarah Miller

Hi, I’m Sarah Millar!
I’m a food blogger who loves creating quick and easy recipes that bring big flavor without the fuss. Cooking doesn’t have to be complicated — and I’m here to share simple, fast food ideas that anyone can make at home. When I’m not in the kitchen, you’ll usually find me tasting new dishes, exploring cafés, or coming up with fresh food hacks to make everyday meals more fun.

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