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!
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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.
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.
Good recipe but I can taste the baking soda in the recipe (stuck to the recipe exactly as instructed!).
I just made this as a Birthday cake for my wife tomorrow 🤞
Awesome! Delicious! Moist! Made this cake for the first time today. It turned out pwrfectly and is seriously THE BEST carrot cake I have ever tasted. Thankyou so much for the recipe. Truly scrumptuous!
Made this over the weekend and it tastes delicious! Thanks Nagi for such excellent recipe.
I made a small cake by dividing the recipe into a third of its original size just using one egg. Baked in a loaf tin for 35 minutes and it came out PERFECT!!! Very moist and not too sweet. Will make again for sure.
It’s therefore a real shame about the frosting. The frosting recipe is the reason for the 1 star deduction. It was sooo sweet even though I had only used half the sugar. I’m convinced the amount written is a typo. I didn’t put the other half of the sugar in and tried to adjust the mix I had with lemon juice, pinch of salt and more cream cheese to make it palatable.
TLDR: DEFINITELY make the cake but DEFINITELY find a different frosting recipe.
Tried this recipe twice already, and I’m loving it more. Not too sweet and very moist. Perfect compliment for my tea/coffee.
Tried this and i didnt like that there was pineapple in it. It took away the carrot taste in my opinion. It was very moist thought. I halved the recipe and did measurements according to weight in recipe. Otherwise nice and the cream cheese icing wasnt too sweet but i left out about 100gms of icing sugar in my halved recipe. I would probably try recipe again without crushed pineapple. Thank you
I’ve made this recipe probably 20-30 times over the last five years. It’s a hit every single time!
My niece and sister are coeliac, so I attempted a GF version by just replacing the flour with GF flour – and to my surprise it worked perfectly!! Everyone was ecstatic with the results. Thanks again Nagi. I’m such a regular visitor to your website, I’ve made it my home page 🙂
That sounds great! What kind of gluten free flour did you use?
I’m so glad I saw your comment! I’m making this for my birthday this week and planned to make a second smaller GF cake for a family member, but I’ll just do this instead:)
I made this carrot cake. It is awesome. Kinda a lot involved, but worth the work. added Lemon juice to the cream cheese icing instead of vanilla.
Hi Nagi, I have made this recipe three times and received thumbs up every time even when I forgot to add the oil….!! to one mix…. Has anyone made, iced and frozen this carrot cake ? Would like to do this if viable .Many thanks for your great recipes , valuable tips and news about Dozer Cheers
Yes.. I made my first ever carrot cake from this recipe a few months ago & put frosting & chopped pecan nuts on top then put it in fridge until it was cold/solid then took it out and cut it into serve size pieces and froze them..put them in an airtight container when frozen with “go between” over each layer ..Just take out what’s needed..Thanx so much Nagi I only use your recipes now as they have never failed ….I’ve just made another 2 for freezer today..I just make a big single one in roasting dish top it & cut into squares..👍🏻 never had a visitor just eat 1 tho 🤪
Yes I did freeze mine- it didnt survive the thawing process and the carrot tasted gritty and too earthy . Also texture was affected. It was very crumbly.
Soooo I cant recommend freezing it !!
Fab recipe thanks Nagi! Pls can you let me know how many days in fridge? And if can be frozen? (Icing already on….) thank you!
I don’t think the icing will be good if frozen? I just read it somewhere that icing like this is not recommended to be frozen. hihi
I have never made one of Nagi’s recipes that hasn’t worked out to perfection… until now. Perhaps it’s because this isn’t her recipe? Whatever it was, I followed the recipe presicely, measured out the ingredients and the thing just came out overly moist and… strange? The pineapple isn’t subtle and I found it more like a pudding than a carrot cake. Would not remake this recipe.
This was my first attempt at making a carrot cake, and the pressure was on as I was throwing a surprise birthday party for someone, with 25 attendees expected. The recipe is easy to follow and the resulting cake is delicious! I baked the cake the day before and kept it in the fridge. It tastes even better in the following days!
Per other users’ notes, I added a bit less icing sugar to the icing recipe, and one extra teaspoon of vanilla extract, and it turned out great.
I’m sad because the batter was waaaay too liquidy. Was feeling suss as there was nothing saying like ‘don’t worry, it’s fine that it’s super runny’ but went with it but in fact, way too wet inside. Even after pick came out looking like it was cooked
Incredibly good and super easy. Added a few sultanas and made it in a single pan. Just perfect. Three days later it is just as moist and fluffy as the day it was baked and no need for refrigeration. Another winner Nagi, thank you so much x
Thanks for sharing the carrot cake recipe! Agree with all the comments however can I confirm is the frosting measurement correct? It was so sweet and all I could taste was sugar – no cream cheese at all (180 grams of C cheese and 480grams of icing) sad part I even couldn’t use on the cake. 🙁
This carrot cake recipe is simply the best. I never used to eat carrot cake because the ones I had tried were always hard & quite tasteless. This recipe, which I know isn’t originally yours, is divine! Thank you for sharing it. I don’t cook/bake very often, in fact I loathe cooking but this encourages me to be more adventurous & try other recipes. Thanks 👍🏼
Quite disappointed, I followed the recipe exactly and baked in a rectangular pan but it didn’t rise 🙁 I should’ve used self-raising flour or baking powder (even though the recipe said not to use it).
Just made it I think it’s going to be my new go to carrot cake recipe ! Made the cream cheese icing a bit differently used a tub of cream cheese, 50g butter 3 cups of icing sugar lemon juice and vanilla