Carrot Cake Recipe with Cream Cheese Frosting

This Carrot Cake recipe is a classic and my all time favorite cake flavor! A light and fluffy cake filled with shredded carrot and spices, and layered with a tangy cream cheese frosting.

Video Tutorial

Follow the video tutorial below for how to make the most delicious Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

The best Carrot Cake

This cake is super moist but also light and fluffy so it never feels heavy. It’s filled to the brim with shredded carrots which is what gives the cake so much moisture.

Flavored with spices and brown sugar, all layered up with tangy cream cheese frosting. When you have a slice you’ll quickly understand why this cake is so delicious.

 

Carrot Cake Frosting

In my opinion you simply can’t have carrot cake without my cream cheese frosting. The carrot cake is sweet and warming with spices and cream cheese just works perfectly at cutting through that flavor.

Of course everyone has different preferences so a couple of other options are lemon frosting or icing or just vanilla buttercream. 

Carrot Cake Recipe Ingredients

 

2 1/2 Cups / 300g Shredded Carrot – Use a box grater to shred your own carrots. Pre shredded carrots have lost so much of their moisture which will lead to a dry cake.

4 Eggs

2 Cups / 200g Sugar – Brown sugar can be used instead of white sugar for a deeper more caramel flavour to the carrot cake.

1 tsp Vanilla Essence

1 1/2 / 375ml Cups Oil – Use a flavorless light oil like canola, sunflower or vegetable. Olive oil is too strong.

2 Cups / 250g Flour

2 tsp Baking Soda – Baking soda is used in this recipe instead of baking powder as the batter is more acidic.

2 tsp Cinnamon – Mixed spice or a small amount of nutmeg can be substituted here.

1/2 tsp Salt

Cream Cheese Frosting – Cream cheese frosting is my favorite for carrot cake but you can use a lemon icing instead.

How to Make Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

 

Shred the carrots using a box grater.

Do not use pre shredded carrots as these are quite dry and will make your cake dry. The cake needs the moisture from the carrots.

Add the shredded carrots to a medium sized mixing bowl.

Crack in the eggs and measure out the remaining wet ingredients, the sugar, vanilla and oil.

Using a wooden spoon mix the ingredients together until well combined.

Place a sieve on top of a clean medium sized bowl. Measure out the flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon.

Sieving the dry ingredients here just makes sure there are no lumps in the batter. Baking soda can be quite clumpy so if you don’t have a sieve you can use a whisk instead. 

Pour the wet ingredients into the bowl with the dry ingredients. Using the wooden spoon fold the cake batter together until you can no longer see any dry flour.

Be careful here to not over mix as this can make the cake dry and tough. Stop mixing as soon you stop seeing dry flour.

Pour the cake batter into an 8″ or 20cm cake pan and bake at 170C/340F for about 60 mins or until a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean.

Leave to cool in the cake pan for 20 minutes before removing and leaving on a wire rack. 

While the carrot cake is cooling whip up the cream cheese frosting. You can find the full recipe here.

When the cake has cooled cut it in half through the center so you have two cakes. Alternatively you can leave it as one cake. 

Place about 3/4 cup of cream cheese frosting on one cake and spread it evenly.

Cover with the second cake and decorate with the remaining cream cheese frosting.

Questions about this Carrot Cake Recipe

Can I add walnuts to the carrot cake?

Yes you can add a range of different ingredients to the carrot cake. I like my carrot cake pretty simple and soft so I don’t add any extras but you can add all sorts of nuts and dried fruit. If you are adding nuts to the carrot cake measure out 1/4 cup of chopped nuts and add to the dry ingredients. Raisins and crushed pineapple also make delicious additions. 

How do I store the Carrot Cake?

This Carrot Cake recipe will stay fresh for about 3-4 days. Keep it covered at room temperature, not in the fridge.

 

For other delicious Cake Recipes check out:

Vanilla Cake with Swiss Meringue Buttercream

Banana Cake with Brown Sugar Buttercream

Funfetti Drip Layer Cake