Best Ever Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

My absolute favorite carrot cake recipe with cream cheese frosting is one that you will LOVE too! Incredibly moist, packed with warming spices and carrot flavor, and frosted and filled with the best cream cheese frosting.

I share all my tips and tricks to ensure the most perfect and delicious carrot cake that you’ve ever tasted, and show you how to make this easy recipe as a one layer sheet cake as well.

Carrot cake recipe overview

• Moist, delicious, packed with warming spices and flavor.
• An easy carrot cake recipe, and I share several ways to adapt and elevate the flavor of your cake!
• I provide plenty of pro tips on how to get the perfect texture in your carrot cake.
• This recipe can be made as a layer cake or even as a carrot cake sheet cake (in a sheet pan).
• I share tips and tricks to ensure perfect cake layers, so you can make a gorgeous layered carrot cake.
• The recipe also includes my favorite cream cheese frosting recipe that can be used to frost and fill this moist cake. It’s the same frosting that works so well with my red velvet cake too.

What you’ll need

Ingredients for carrot cake

Carrots

Won’t be carrot cake without carrots, of course. You can use any type of carrot that you like for this recipe. Orange carrots are usually the standard, but red, yellow, or purple carrots can also be used.

Make sure to use fresh carrots that are a little sweet so that the flavor of carrots shines through in the cake. I like to peel my carrots as well, but you can choose not to if you prefer.

Wet ingredients

• Neutral tasting oil – Using vegetable oil instead of butter for a carrot cake helps to create a light open crumb. Cakes with butter have a denser crumb, and if you like that, you can absolutely use butter instead of oil here too. But I love the fluffy light texture of the carrot cake when made with oil instead of butter.
• Sugar – I use a combination of brown and white sugar for my favorite version of carrot cake. Brown sugar adds extra flavor from the molasses. But you can absolutely use all white sugar or all brown sugar as well. The sugar also plays a crucial role in how soft the final cake will be.
• Eggs – This recipe uses large eggs. The eggs add structure to the final cake crumb, while the yolks also add richness.
• Vanilla extract and salt – Both vanilla extract and salt help enhance the sweetness / flavors, and balances the flavor profile too.
• Apple sauce or crushed pineapple – For extra moisture and flavor, you can add apple sauce or even pineapple. There are even other options you can use instead to add extra flavor to your carrot cake. Here are some options I use,
  • Apple sauce (store-bought or homemade)
  • Crushed pineapple
  • Baby food puree (I use fruit and vegetable mix of baby food puree in my cakes!)
  • Mango puree
  • Mashed banana
  • Pureed cooked carrots (like pureed carrot baby food) that will add even more carrot flavor to the cake.

Dry ingredients

• All purpose flour
• Baking soda and baking powder – The chemical leaveners react with the acidity in the ingredients (brown sugar, fruit puree, and baking powder) to create CO2 and lift the cake batter. This creates the light fluffy crumb in the carrot cake. (As explained in detail in my baking basics guide on baking soda vs baking powder).
• Spice mix – This adds a lot of flavor to the carrot cake. You can also use pumpkin spice mix instead. I like to use,
  • Cinnamon
  • Ginger
  • Nutmeg
  • Allspice
  • Cloves
• Chopped nuts – You can leave out the nuts if you like, but they do add SO MUCH flavor! I love to add pecans, while walnuts are also a very popular option. To really bring out the best flavor in the nuts, make sure to lightly roast them before adding them to the cake.

Ingredients for cream cheese frosting

My recipe for cream cheese frosting has the flavor of classic cream cheese flavor, and I share lots of crucial tips on how to maintain the classic flavor while being able to pipe and spread the frosting between cake layers AND on top!

It’s a fantastic frosting for any type of spice cake and pastry (like banana layer cake, maple pecan cake, gingerbread cupcakes, red velvet cake, and of course, cinnamon rolls).

Here’s what you’ll need for the best cream cheese frosting for carrot cake.

• Cream cheese blocks (not the tubs)
• Butter
• Confectioner’s sugar
• Salt and vanilla
• Instant vanilla pudding mix
• Cream cheese powder or milk powder

Recipe variations and additions

You can substitute and add ingredients to make carrot cake variations! These variations include,

• Carrot Cake with walnuts – Add only walnuts to the cake batter.
• Carrot cake with pecans – Add only pecans to the cake batter.
• Adding raisins – You can add raisins in addition to the nuts to add more sweetness to the carrot cake.
• Carrot cake with pineapples – I prefer adding crushed pineapple to apple sauce. This adds a lovely tropical flavor to your carrot cake. Makes the cake taste like a cross between carrot cake and hummingbird cake.
• Shredded coconut – Add unsweetened or sweetened coconut to for even more tropical flavor in your carrot cake.
• Adding baby food – I love substituting the apple sauce / pineapple with baby food! I’ve used a mango and coconut baby food packets, which add a lovely fruity flavor to the carrot cake.

Cream cheese frosting variations

• Spiced cream cheese frosting – Add the same spice powder in the cake recipe to the cream cheese frosting for a lovely, warming spiced cream cheese frosting!
• Brown butter cream cheese frosting – Substitute half the butter with brown butter to make a brown butter cream cheese frosting (like I did for this banana layer cake).

How to make moist carrot cake from scratch

Step one – Roast and chop the nuts

Since all the ingredients should be at room temperature before going into the batter, it’s important to prepare the nuts first. I like to roast the whole nuts, because this really coaxes out maximum flavor from the nuts.

You can use all walnuts, or all pecans, or a combination of both. Place the nuts on a baking tray and roast them in a preheated oven for about 10 minutes, or until they are are just a little darker and you can smell toasted nuts. For chopped nuts, this will be a much shorter bake time.

Then let the nuts cool down to room temperature. Reserve some of the nuts to decorate the cake, and chop the rest of ’em. They shouldn’t be too large, but not finely chopped either.

Step two – Grate the carrots

Wash and dry the fresh carrots. Then peel them. Make sure to use fresh carrots because they tend to be sweeter and will add better flavor.

For grating the carrots, I prefer to go with a finer shred than a course shred. Smaller pieces of carrots spread better throughout the cake batter as well. Finer pieces of carrots will help with keeping a tighter cake crumb that doesn’t crumble.

Step three – Prepare the cake pans

Butter and line three 9 inch round cake pans with parchment paper. I prefer to line the bottom with parchment paper, and butter and dust the sides with flour.

This step is optional, but you can also soak bake-even strips and wrap them around the cake pans.

Preheat the oven to 350 F / 180 C.

Step four – Prepare the dry ingredients

Place the flour, spices, baking powder, and baking soda in a large bowl. Whisk until everything is well combined. Sift the dry ingredients if needed as well to remove any lumps in the flour.

Step five – Combine the wet ingredients

To combine the wet ingredients, first whisk together the oil and sugars (image 4). Whisk well to make sure there are no lumps in your brown sugar. This is very important, because lumps in the brown sugar will lead to large sugary pockets in your carrot cake.

Then, add the eggs, vanilla, and salt (image 5). You can also add the apple sauce at the same time (though you can add it along with the carrots too). Instead of apple sauce, you can add crushed pineapple too.

However, place the pineapple in a sieve and let it sit for about 1 minute so that any excess moisture will drain out first. But DO NOT squeeze the pineapple because you do want SOME moisture in the crushed pineapple.

Step six – Start adding dry ingredients

It’s very important to mix in the dry ingredients as gently as possible. Overmixing the flour will lead to a more rubbery cake with large holes. This is also known as tunneling, and you want to avoid that.

• Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients in 2 – 3 additions, and use a spatula to gently fold in the dry ingredients (image 7).
• When folding in ingredients, add the next addition while there is still a little of the flour streaks left from the previous addition. This can help prevent overmixing.

Leave just some of the dry ingredients aside, so you can add it after the carrots.

Step seven – Add the carrots and nuts

While there are some white streaks from the flour still present, add the carrots and chopped nuts into the batter. You can add either walnuts or pecan, or even both (image 8)

Fold in the carrots and nuts with the spatula. But before all of it has completely mixed in, add the remaining bit of flour and fold it in together with the carrots (image 9).

Once all the carrots, chopped nuts, and flour have just mixed in well with the wet ingredients, the batter is ready (image 10).

Step eight – Fill the cake pans and bake the cake

Evenly divide the batter between the 3 cake pans. I use an ice cream scoop or a 1/4 cup measuring cup to evenly portion out the batter between the cake pans.

Evenly spread the batter in the cake pans and tap each of them on the counter top to even out the batter in the pan (image 11).

Place the cake pans in the oven (with at least 1.5 inch space between the pans) and bake until baked through. This can take between 25 – 35 minutes, and will depend on your oven and the cake pans you use as well. The cake is done when a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out fairly clean. A few dry cake crumbs on the tooth pick are absolutely OK.

Step nine – Let the cakes cool and chill

Once the cakes are baked, remove them from the oven and let them cool for a few minutes (image 12). While still warm, turn over the cake layers onto a wire rack and let them cool down to room temperature completely.

Next, wrap the cakes with plastic wrap and chill the cake layers for a few hours in the fridge until chilled. A chilled cake is easier to frost and fill, especially when working with cream cheese frosting.

How to make cream cheese icing for carrot cake

I have a detailed guide on how to make the most perfect cream cheese frosting. This recipe is different from others because,

• It has the classic cream cheese flavor,
• Isn’t too sweet at all,
• I give tips on how to ensure that the frosting stays pipeable,
• Secret ingredients that help keep the cream cheese frosting from being too runny.

The first step of making cream cheese frosting is to aerate the butter.

Next, add the confectioners sugar to make a super fluffy buttercream base for your cream cheese frosting.

After that, whisk cold cream cheese to break it down a little to prevent lumps forming in the frosting.

Finally, add the buttercream mixture and whisk to form a creamy, fluffy cream cheese frosting.

The frosting is now ready for use!

How to decorate a carrot cake

You can honestly decorate your cake however you like! You can either go with a rustic look, or a neat and professional look. You can also use different piping tips to decorate borders however you like. Just remember that cream cheese frosting softens easily, so make sure to keep the frosting cool, so that it’s easier to pipe.

But you first have to prepare the cake layers by filling them and stacking them.

Step ten – Fill the cake layers

To ensure that you have an even layer of frosting between the cake layers, use an ice cream scoop to evenly measure the same amount of frosting for each layer. Spread the frosting in an even layer on top of the cake layer.

Place the next layer on top, and repeat with the frosting, and then place the final cake layer on top. Make sure that the flattest side of the cake is facing up so that you have a lovely even layer to frost on top (images 11 – 16).

Step eleven – Crumb coat the carrot cake

This step is optional, but it does prevent cake crumbs getting on your frosting layer. Especially important if you want a cake that has a professional look.

Spread the frosting all over the sides of the cake. Use a bench scraper or an offset spatula to smoothen the sides to get the thinnest layer of frosting on the sides. Make sure the cream cheese frosting fills the gaps between the cake layers.

Then, spread a thin layer of frosting on top of the cake. This crumb coating can be used to ensure you have flat straight sides, and a flat and even top on your cake too (image 17).

Place the crumb coated cake in the fridge for at least 30 minutes (or longer), till the frosting chills and sets.

Step twelve – Final frosting and decorating

Once the crumb coating is set, spread another layer of frosting on top. This layer of frosting can either be smoothened out with a bench scraper for a neater (professional or smooth) look, OR you can swirl the frosting with a small spatula to create a more rustic look (see pictures in the post).

I personally prefer the rustic look! Use the remaining frosting to pipe decorations on the edges of the cake and use the nuts to decorate the cake.

Recipe tips for success

For the carrot cake

• Make sure the ingredients are at room temperature.
• Whisk the oil and sugar together first to ensure that there are no lumps in the brown sugar.
• Roast the nuts that you will be adding to the cake! This brings out all the flavor!
• Grate the carrots into a fine shred, rather than coarse. This will help with the moist crumb of the cake.
• Do not overmix the batter after adding the flour! Overworking the gluten will result in tunneling in the cake layers and a rubbery texture.
• Bake the cake layers until a toothpick inserted has a couple of dry cake crumbs on it when removed. This will avoid the cake layers from drying out / overbaking.
• Chill the cake layers before frosting them. This will help keep the cream cheese frosting cool, and make it easier to stack cake layers.
• When cutting the cake, use a sharp knife that is warmed up with hot tap water (and wiped dry and clean). Using a warm knife for every cut will help you get nice, clean cuts.
• And rather than pressing down on the cake, move the knife back and forth slightly to cut through the cake. Since the cake is so soft and moist, pressing down on the cake can cause the cake to break and for the frosting to squeeze out.

For the cream cheese

For a more detailed list of tips, check out my tips for perfect cream cheese frosting.

• Use room temperature butter to make the fluffiest buttercream base for the cream cheese frosting.
• Keep the cream cheese cold, so that the cream cheese frosting can stay cold. This will prevent the frosting from being too soft and runny.
• Whisk the cream cheese separately to make it smooth. This will prevent any cream cheese lumps in the final frosting.

Storage instructions

Freezing

The best way to store the carrot cake for later is to wrap and freeze the cake layers. The cake layers will freeze beautifully for up to 4 months in the freezer. But they must be well-wrapped to prevent freezer burn.

You can absolutely freeze leftover carrot cake pieces, but please note that the frosting texture might change after thawing. I wouldn’t recommend freezing an entire frosted cake.

Refrigerating

Once a carrot cake is frosted, with filling between the layers, it must be refrigerated. This is because of the cream cheese frosting. This frosting will soften at room temperature and will even melt at warmer temperatures. Unfortunately, the cake will not be stable if the frosting is starting to melt.

Therefore, I recommend storing the cream cheese frosted carrot cake in the fridge before serving. Leftovers can also be stored in the fridge for up to 4 – 5 days, provided they are stored in an airtight container.

Commonly asked questions

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