Easy Carrot Cake Recipe (Incredibly Moist)

My favourite recipe for carrot cake with a creamy cream cheese frosting! It’s produced from scratch, straightforward to make, and totally scrumptious. Certainly one of our hottest cake recipes! Simply learn all of the rave evaluations!

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This carrot cake is fast, straightforward to make, and totally scrumptious. It wasn’t till lately that we realized how a lot we love carrot cake. It wasn’t one thing both of us grew up consuming. Due to this straightforward recipe, we fell in love.

Not solely is that this the best-tasting carrot cake we’ve made, but it surely’s really easy to make. I wager you may have most of what you should make it in your kitchen proper now. If you wish to make cupcakes, see these Easy Carrot Cake Cupcakes impressed by this cake recipe.

Key Carrot Cake Components

• I like utilizing all-purpose flour, however you possibly can substitute some all-purpose flour for complete wheat or white complete wheat flour. Swap the flour on your favourite gluten-free flour mix for a gluten-free carrot cake.
• Baking soda helps the cake to rise. We don’t add baking powder – this cake recipe doesn’t want it.
• Salt, cinnamon, and vanilla extract make our cake style superb.
• Oil retains the cake good and moist — any neutral-flavored oil will work. Melted coconut oil works, too, however the baked cake can have a lightweight coconut taste. We use oil as a substitute of butter when making blueberry muffins, too.
• Sugar makes the cake moist, gentle, and scrumptious. I really like a mix of white and brown sugar, however you should use one or the opposite. Since posting the recipe, a few of our readers have requested whether or not or not we will scale back the sugar known as for within the recipe. You possibly can, however take into account that the quantity we specify will produce the moistest cake.
• Eggs give the cake construction.
• A number of carrots make this the perfect carrot cake. I prefer to hand-grate my carrots since I choose the feel, however you should use your meals processor or purchase pre-grated carrots from the shop. After we first examined the cake, we scaled the variety of carrots again to 2 cups since three cups sounded excessive. After baking and letting it cool, we had been just a little disenchanted. So, in the event you’re making the carrot cake and begin to second-guess the variety of carrots known as for in our recipe under, don’t. You want all three cups. It’s a carrot cake, in any case.
• Pecans and raisins are non-compulsory! Some individuals love nuts and raisins in carrot cake, whereas others can’t stand so as to add them. These are totally non-compulsory, so go along with what you like.

Easy methods to Make Carrot Cake from Scratch, You’ve Acquired This!

The strategy for this carrot cake recipe couldn’t be less complicated! If in case you have a few bowls and might stir components collectively, you can also make this cake! As you possibly can see from our recipe video, all you should do is mix all of the components.

1. Dry components in a single bowl, moist components in one other: I prefer to whisk my dry components collectively in a single bowl till they’re effectively blended. Then, I whisk all of the moist components collectively in one other bowl.
2. Fold the dry and moist components collectively: Then I swap to a rubber spatula or massive spoon and fold the 2 — moist and dry components — collectively till I don’t see any massive streaks of flour. (We use the identical methodology when making this cinnamon coffee cake, our pineapple upside-down cake, and this buttery blueberry cake.)
3. Add carrots, nuts, and raisins: After I’ve received the batter prepared, I fold within the carrots, and if I’m utilizing them, the nuts and raisins.

Our Suggestions for Baking Carrot Cake

1. I exploit two 8-inch or 9-inch gentle steel baking pans for this recipe. Should you use the smaller 8-inch spherical pans, make sure the pan is at the very least 2 inches deep.
2. Butter and flour your pans or grease flippantly and line with parchment paper. I exploit parchment paper in our video, so you possibly can see how I minimize parchment for spherical cake pans. You too can purchase 8-inch or 9-inch parchment paper rounds on-line (an ideal thought in the event you bake many muffins).
3. You possibly can inform carrot cake is able to come out of the oven when it’s risen and a bit bouncy once you flippantly contact it — I exploit one or two fingers and flippantly push. Should you go away a dent within the cake, it wants a bit extra time.
4. Cool the cake layers utterly earlier than frosting. I like to chill them within the pans for quarter-hour after which flip them onto a cooling rack to chill utterly.

Frosting Your Carrot Cake

We’ve supplied two frosting recipes in our carrot cake recipe under.

1. Further creamy cream cheese frosting – mushy, swoopy, and extra just like whipped cream
2. Conventional cream cheese frosting – holds its form, you possibly can pipe it on, and it’s what you’re used to seeing frosted onto carrot cake within the US

Our images and video present our further creamy cream cheese frosting. It’s mushy, creamy, and doesn’t agency up like conventional cream cheese frosting. We additionally use it when making this Guinness chocolate cake. It’s made with solely 4 components: cream cheese, powdered sugar, heavy cream (not plain whipping cream, which has much less fats content material), and cornstarch (non-compulsory, but it surely helps agency it up a bit).

⭐️ For a firmer frosting, use the normal frosting: The recipe is supplied within the ideas part under the recipe. We advocate this feature in the event you plan to frost the complete cake or use a piping bag to pipe on the frosting.

Should you’re not into frostings or don’t have the components, strive the cake as-is with none frosting. Or, sift just a little little bit of powdered sugar on prime. When Adam and I had been testing this cake recipe, we skipped the frosting the primary couple of occasions and fell in love with the cake utterly plain.

Our Suggestions for Storing Carrot Cake

• Storing unfrosted carrot cake layers: Wrap the person cake layers tightly in plastic wrap or place them in an hermetic container. Retailer it within the fridge for as much as 5 days. To freeze, add a layer of foil, after which freeze for as much as 3 months. Thaw in a single day within the fridge earlier than frosting and serving.
• Storing a frosted carrot cake: Retailer the complete cake, lined in plastic wrap or an hermetic container, within the fridge for as much as 1 week. We don’t advocate freezing a frosted carrot cake (the frosting doesn’t thaw effectively).

Continuously Requested Questions

Can I make carrot cake cupcakes utilizing this recipe? Sure, completely (and in the event you learn via the feedback, a lot of our readers have completed simply that). To make cupcakes as a substitute of a cake, we’d advocate baking for 14 to 18 minutes (or till a tester inserted into the middle of 1 comes out clear). Then, allow them to cool for a couple of minutes within the cupcake pan earlier than transferring them to a cooling rack. The recipe ought to make about 24 cupcakes. We now have been requested this query so typically, that we’ve added a Carrot Cake Cupcake Recipe.

Can I make one massive single-layer cake? Sure, however the baking time will change. A ten-cup or 12-cup Bundt pan ought to be nice for a bundt cake. You’ll probably want to extend the baking time by about 30% within the 10-cup pan and fewer within the 12-cup. The batter may even match right into a 9-inch by 13-inch pan, however you would possibly want to go away out a little bit of the batter so it doesn’t overflow. (I’d additionally bake the cake on a sheet pan in case some batter comes over the edges.)

Can I exploit applesauce as a substitute of oil within the carrot cake recipe? We now have by no means tried this ourselves, so it’s possible you’ll must experiment by yourself. That stated, you need to be capable of swap a few of the oil for applesauce with out too many points.

Can I add pineapple to the carrot cake? Sure, completely. It should add much more moisture to the cake, so use recent pineapple, or if you’re utilizing canned, drain it first earlier than including it to the cake. We don’t advocate including greater than 1 cup.

Extra Basic Baking Recipes

Simple Carrot Cake (Extremely Moist)

Makes 1 (9-inch) double layer cake (16 skinny slices) or 22 to 24 cupcakes

Vitamin Per Serving
Serving Dimension
1 slice (1 of 16)
/
Energy
535
/
Complete Fats
33.4g
/
Saturated Fats
6.9g
/
Ldl cholesterol
69.3mg
/
Sodium
315.9mg
/
Carbohydrate
56.4g
/
Dietary Fiber
2.4g
/
Complete Sugars
40.5g
/
Protein
5.6g

AUTHOR: 

Adam and Joanne Gallagher