Carrot Cake

Made from scratch Carrot Cake and topped with cream cheese frosting.

This is my first recipe I have posted in a very long time. I think Carrot Cake is a good "back to recipe blogging" debut!  I am super excited to be sharing recipes again. I've got a small batch of recipes made and photographed and will be sharing soon.

Hope you had a great weekend. We got a lot of stuff done and yet out house is such a mess. the focus on the weekend for me was recipes and for Jason it was the garage, so obviously the house looks the way it does. We had dinner with our friends Sunday evening and that was fun.

I like that Easter is later this year and I hope that means we will have nice weather. As of now it's looking like it's going to be warm but it may rain. 

Carrot Cake is an obvious great choice for an Easter dessert but it also makes a great one for Thanksgiving too so be sure to pin the recipe and save it for both holidays and anything in between! 

I made this Carrot Cake uses finely shredded carrots. I suggest using a box grater and and the shredding side of it. Your arms will probably be tired but the fine shredded carrots really help to not make the cake too soggy since there's a lot of water in the carrots. Also, you won't have big pieces of carrots in your cake either so it's worth the work you have to put into it.

Jason took the remains of the Carrot Cake to work and his boss told him it was the best cake he's ever had!  

 I know there's actually multiple "styles" of Carrot Cake out there and this one is a recipe without pineapple and raisins. This is a basic Carrot Cake recipe with cream cheese frosting and finely chopped pecans! So Good!! 

Print Recipe

Carrot Cake

Ingredients

• 2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
• 1 ¼ teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 ¼ teaspoons ground cinnamon
• ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 3 cups shredded carrots about 6 medium sized carrots
• 1 ½ cups granulated sugar
• ½ cup packed light brown sugar
• 4 large eggs room temperature
• 1 ½ cups vegetable oil
• ½ teaspoon vanilla

Cream Cheese Frosting

• 8 ounce package of cream cheese softened
• ½ cup butter softened
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 5 ½ to 6 cups powdered sugar
• Finely chopped pecans or walnuts optional

Instructions

• Heat oven to 350 degrees and adjust oven rack to middle position.
• Grease a 13x9 inch cake pan.
• Grate carrots until you have 3 cups of finely shredded carrots.
• Whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt together in large bowl, set aside.
• Using stand mixer or mixing bowl with hand mixer beat granulated sugar, brown sugar and eggs on medium-high speed until thoroughly combined, about 45 seconds.
• Reduce speed to medium with mixer running, slowly pour in oil (pour along the side of the bowl)
• Once oil is poured carefully reduce speed to high and mix until mixture is light in color pour in vanilla and lightly mix.
• Stir in by hand the carrots a little at a time. Then add flour mixture a little at a time and stir by hand. Do this until no flour streaks remain and all is fully incorporated.
• Scrape batter into prepared pan and lightly tap pan on counter to release air bubbles.
• Bake cake until toothpick (which will probably be orange) inserted in the middle comes clean about 35-40 minutes and rotating halfway.
• Let cake cool completely on wired racks for two hours.
• Run knife along the edges of cake to loosen from pan.
• Invert cake onto platter or frost cake as it in pan.
• Top with nuts if you wish.

Cream Cheese Frosting

• In a large mixing bowl combine cream cheese and butter and vanilla and mix with mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy. Gradually beat in powdered sugar until spreadable consistency.
• Top with ½ -1 cup chopped pecans or walnuts, if you wish to.

Notes

Rotate Cake halfway while baking.