I don’t know about you but I’ve tasted some tough, chewy carrot cake, and that makes me sad. I’m in love with carrot cake; I think they’re easy to make and incredibly delicious if you know how to bake it right. It wasn’t until recently that I discover the easiest way of making carrot cake at home with simple ingredients, versatile, and perfectly scrumptious.
Carrot cake is not something we grew up eating, but it’s pretty popular now in most bakeries because it’s tasty and has loads of nutritional benefits.
I’m about to show you to recreate the most delicious carrot cake recipe (my version). No fancy equipment required and it takes only an hour to prep it from scratch. Everything you need is available in most kitchens like a spatula, a mixing bowl, a whisk, and an oven.
delish.com
Prep time: 25 minutes
Cooking time: 50 minutes
Ingredients – for the batter
- 300 grams lightly packed grated carrots
- 250 grams (2 cups) all-purpose flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 ½ tsp ground cinnamon
- ½ tsp grated ginger
- ¼ tsp grated nutmeg
- ½ tsp salt
- 180 ml canola or vegetable oil
- 4 eggs (choose the large ones)
- 1 ½ cups brown sugar
- ½ cup granulated sugar
- ½ small pineapple – grounded
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 50 grams raisins
For cream cheese frosting
- 225 grams (1 package brick) cream cheese. Soften it at room temperature
- ½ cup unsalted butter. Soften in at room temperature
- 1 ½ cup powdered sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
How to Make Carrot Cake
livforcake.com
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit while preparing for the batter.
- Use two 9-inches round baking pans and spray the surface using cooking spray. Place the parchment paper at the bottom pans. Set aside.
- In a mixing bowl, make the dry ingredients by whisking together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, ground cinnamon, grated ginger, grated nutmeg, and salt. Set aside.
- In a separate mixing bowl, whisk the oil, eggs, brown sugar, vanilla extract, and granulated sugar together.
- Once well-combined, add grated carrots and raisins to the wet batter. Stir it thoroughly until it combined well.
- Pour the wet ingredients batter to the dry ingredients mix. Whisk and mix it using a spatula until the batter is smooth. Be sure not to over mix the batter.
- Pour the cake batter evenly between both baking pans — Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit. You can check if the top layer of the cake is set and test it using a toothpick to see if the center comes out clean. The baking should take around 35 to 40 minutes.
- Take the pans out of the oven and cool them down for around 20 to 25 minutes.
- Using the parchment paper, remove the cakes from the pans and continue the cooling for around 10 minutes (until it cools completely).
How to Make the Cream Cheese Frosting for Carrot Cake
- In another large bowl, beat the cream cheese for about 1 minute until it smooth and creamy. You can use a stand mixer or handheld mixer.
- Add butter to the mix and stir until it combined well for around 30 seconds to 1 minute.
- Add powdered sugar ¼ cup at a time until the mix becomes fluffy and then add vanilla extract. Chill covered the mix until ’
- Once it fully combined, scrape the sides of the bowl and to the bottom as required.
How to Assemble Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting
Now that you have the cake completely cooled down layer the top of carrot cake with the frosting using a cake leveler. If you don’t have one, use a knife. My favorite is I only layer the top and leave the sides unfrosted, but you can cover the entire cake with the frosting. Scatter walnuts or coconut on top to add more texture and flavor.
Addition:
Tips to Make Delicious Carrot Cake
kingarthurflour.com
I gather that some of you are very careful with the fat intake of the cake. So that you know, there are several tips to use when recreating my carrot cake recipe.
Replace oil with buttermilk – Carrot is fueled with oil so you may want to replace the canola or vegetable oil with some buttermilk. But isn’t oil has more saturated fat than the buttermilk? Yes, it does, but it also calorie-dense. If wanted, divide the portion of the mixture to using half oil and half buttermilk in the right portion.
Cut off the sugar – Do not overpower your carrot cake with a sweet taste. To balance the taste, you can use crushed pineapples or adding a lime zest for the sweetener and create a little bit more of a rich flavor to the carrot cake recipe.