Carrot Cake! With a hint of cinnamon, soft crunch from nuts, ultra moist crumb and piled high with the fluffiest ever cream cheese frosting, this has the perfect texture and flavour. Easy and foolproof, absolutely to-die for!
Carrot Cake
This Carrot Cake is from a reader, the lovely Dorothy of Tennessee in the States, a long-time reader of RecipeTin Eats. She promised it was dead easy, foolproof, ultra moist with a heavenly flavour.
One bite was all it took for me to ditch the recipe I’d been using all my life up until that moment. This was The One. Hands down the best Carrot Cake I have ever had in my life!
I love it so much, in fact, that I’ve also just published a cupcake version too!
Why you’ll love this Carrot Cake recipe
The cake itself is not too sweet, with less sugar than most recipes;
The cake is moist, but not doughy or “mud-cake” like;
The subtle crunch from pecans and coconut in the cake. The textural contrast with the crumb is really terrific; and
There is plenty of frosting!!
What you need for Carrot Cake
Here’s what you need for this Carrot Cake. The “secret ingredients” in this are:
Crushed pineapple (canned) – this adds to the moistness of the crumb, as well as sweetness and flavour. We’re going to use all of the pineapple and some of the juice; and
Coconut and walnuts (or pecans) – they add a subtle soft crunch which provides great textural contrast in this cake that has a very soft crumb.
No butter! Did you know – oil makes cakes moist and butter adds flavour. In this recipe, we don’t need butter because there’s all sorts of flavour from the other ingredients so we just use oil.
How to make Carrot Cake
Just use a standard box grater to grate the carrot. Then it’s as simple as mixing the Dry ingredients, mixing the Wet, then mixing them together.
I’ve made a 2 layer cake here but you could also make one rectangle single layer cake.
Cream Cheese Frosting for Carrot Cake
There’s just no question – fluffy cream cheese frosting is the BEST frosting for Carrot Cake! Here’s what you need:
Cream cheese – use BLOCK, not the spreadable cream cheese in tubs (too soft);
Softened butter – softened but not super soft / borderline melting;
Icing sugar aka powdered sugar – 🇦🇺use soft icing sugar, NOT pure icing sugar (which is used for things like royal icing ie sets hard); and
Vanilla.
How to make cream cheese frosting
There’s no secret trick to making fluffy cream cheese frosting. Just beat, beat, beat until fluffy! It will take a good 3 to 5 minutes to make the frosting super fluffy.
TIP for even layers (without trimming)
No cake comes out of the oven with a perfectly level surface.
But rather than bothering to cut the top to make it level, just flip the cake upside down before frosting.
You’ll still get a slight dome in the middle with this cake but it’s less pronounced than if you frosted it without turning it upside down.
And so I present to you, Dorothy’s Carrot Cake, with 2 layers, though it’s marvellous as a single layer sheet pan rectangle cake – goes further and there’s a thicker layer of frosting on the surface.
Thank you Dorothy, for sharing your wonderful recipe with us!!! I’m so honoured! – Nagi x
Watch how to make it
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Carrot Cake (Easy and ultra moist!)
Ingredients
- 440g / 20 oz can crushed pineapple , drained but RESERVE juice (Note 1)
- 1/4 cup (65 ml) reserved canned pineapple juice (from canned pineapple above)
Wet Ingredients
- 3/4 cup (185 ml) milk , at room temperature (full or low fat)
- 1 tsp white vinegar (or lemon juice or other clear vinegar, (Note 2)
- 3 eggs (55g/2oz each)
- 1 1/2 cups (265g) brown sugar (loosely packed)
- 1/2 cup (125 ml) vegetable oil (or canola)
Dry Ingredients
- 2 cups (300g) flour , plain / all purpose
- 2 tsp baking soda (aka bi carb soda, Note 3) (NOT BAKING POWDER)
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 2 tsp cinnamon powder
Stir Ins
- 2 cups grated carrot , about 2 carrots, peeled (Note 4)
- 1/4 cup coconut , shredded or desiccated (plain / unsweetened)
- 1/2 cup walnuts or pecans , roughly chopped
Frosting
- 180g / 6oz cream cheese , at room temperature (Note 5)
- 225g / 1 cup unsalted butter , softened
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 4 cups (480g) icing sugar / powdered sugar , sifted if clumpy (Note 6)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 180°C/350°F (all oven types). Grease and line two 20-22.5 cm/8 – 9" round pans OR a 9 x 13" / 22 x 33cm pan with baking/parchment paper. (Note 7)
- Drain crushed pineapple well, reserving the juice. Measure out 1/4 cup of pineapple juice.
- Whisk Dry ingredients in a large bowl.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together the milk, vinegar, eggs, sugar, oil and the 1/4 cup pinepple juice from Step 2.
- Stir in carrot, crushed pineapple, coconut and pecans into the Wet ingredients bowl.
- Pour Wet into Dry ingredients, stir until flour is incorporated.
- Pour into prepared pan(s). Bake round cakes for 35 minutes, rectangle cake for 40 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean and the cake is golden on top.
- Rest for 10 minutes in the pan before turning out onto a cooling rack. Frost once completely cool.
Cream Cheese Frosting
- Beat together cream cheese, butter and vanilla until smooth. Then beat in the icing sugar in 2 batches until it is well incorporated and the frosting is fluffy – about 3 minutes on speed 7 stand mixer.
- Flip one cake upside down on serving platter (for flat surface). Spread with 1/3 frosting. Place 2nd cake upside down on frosting. Frost top and sides with remaining frosting.
Storage
- If cooler than 25°C/77°C and not humid, ok to keep cake in airtight container not in fridge. If very humid OR warmer than 25°C/77°C, store in fridge (Note 8).
Recipe Notes:
Nutrition Information:
Originally published April 2016. Updated with new photos, and new recipe video added!
“Let them eat cake!” 10 classic cake recipes
Life of Dozer
Project Manager Dozer on duty for the video shoot! Quality Assurance is his speciality 😂
And here he is from when I originally published this Carrot Cake – no surprises, Dozer lurking under the shoot table! I’m not going to lie to you. He scored a big hunk of carrot cake. His bottom can afford it. Mine can’t.
My email said a lovely person responded to my question re freezing this cake. Unfortunately I couldn’t find Laura among the 824 comments. If you see this Laura, thank you.
PS I froze the cake without frosting. I thawed it fully and frosted it.
It was perfect !
Nagi, thank you for sharing this recipe I made them in a muffin tins and were absolutely delicious
Hi Nagi, do you think this cake would store well in the freezer and then take it out the day before needed to ice it? Or do you think it would store ok in the fridge without icing for 3 days?
I made this carrot cake for Christmas Day. The best ever cake that you will ever hope to bake. Moist, delicious and the best ever. I’m using this recipe to make cup cakes for bowls next week. This recipe provides for two huge round cakes …. absolutely my favourite recipe. Much love, Beatrice Lombard, Durban, South Africa
I made this a couple of times and most recently for Christmas. Didn’t use the pineapple but it was still such a hit! My new go-to recipe for carrot cake
I made this carrot cake and really love it.
Great recipe! I have a Nordic gingerbread house tin and wondering if this recipe is suitable for it? My kids doesn’t like gingerbread, would love to make a carrot cake instead for Christmas! Thanks 🙂
Best Carrot Cake I have ever tried!! verified by 6 people all rated it 10/10, can’t wait to try more recipes from this website!
Absolutely the best carrot cake recipe. So moist, easy to make. I put in extra spices and I made it in a rectangle cake tin. Thank you
I have only made a few carrot cake before, I won a vegetable Box at a raffle and had HEAPS of carrots.
So I thought carrot cake it is.
I love pineapple and thought I’d give this one a go.
Goodness gracious me. I loved the taste even before I cooked it.
My hubby said it was the best carrot cake he has even had, I must agree with him. How delicious, another one in MANY recipes of yours Nagi I have made and saved.
Good recipe, however it would be nice to have “SOFT” icing sugar written in the ACTUAL ingredient list, not tucked away in the notes, forcing a hasty rush to the shops to get the correct item.
I can only get cream cheese in tubs which is a lot softer than the block version, how do I change the measurements so I get the correct consistancy
This really is the best carrot cake! I only add just over half of the icing sugar and a splash of left over pineapple juice for the icing and it’s deliciously sweet enough
can i leave pineapple out of carrot cake
I have made this for my team mates and they are obsessed it was gone in seconds. I added all of the juice from pineapple and some raisins it was wow !!!
Do you have to add pineapple to carrot cake ?
The cake is so moist! But I got a problem about the top. It burnt the top a bit already before it cooked so had to lower the temp. And it rose like a dome thing at top. I don’t know where I went wrong.
I’d love to make this cake for our cake day at work. However, we do not have crushed pineapple in The Netherlands. Could anyone tell me what the consistency is? Finely chopped or more like a mash?
Hi Nagi, can you tell me what the drained weight of the pineapple is. I can’t get the 440g can where I am.
What a fabulous recipe, I do not consider myself a baker. I cook a lot but not cakes however this is a brilliant recipe, it is easy to make and looks spectacular. Have made it twice in the last month
The carrot cake is so lovely. I tried using the recipe for a couple of months now and everyone just love it. I use the same measurements except for the sugar,I only used 1 cup instead.