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.
I have made this cake 3 times and it is absolutely perfect. My family loves it! We are such big fans of Nagi! She is a household name for us around the table. 🙂
Magnificent cake the best. A little sweet. How much could I reduce the brown sugar by without compromising the cake??
We used 2/3 of the sugar in the cake and still turned out quite nicely. And used the cupcake icing recipe (has more cream cheese than butter) with 1/4 of the sugar – suited our not-so-sweet palates.
I halved the sugar as it’s sweet from the pineapple and the butter cream. Could probably go even less than half.
Made it for a shared meal while we watched the rugby. Absolutely delicious, plus we won the game! Have tried many carrot cake recipes and will be replacing them with this one.
I totally forgot to send a message about your carrot cake! I made it as a surprise for my son’s birthday last year, and it was requested to be made again this year! Also, a co-worker wanted a carrot cake for her birthday as well so I will be tagging you this time. It will be a year this Wednesday since I made it the first time. I’m so excited to tag you on IG with the pics!
Nagi, can I leave out nuts, also in uk we don’t have block cream cheese ? Love your recipes. New book on order. Can’t wait !
Hi Nagi, how long will the carrot cake keep for in the fridge once baked and iced? Thank you 😊
I am also interested in this as I need to make it for a 40th this week!
Cake was like restaurant quality ! Very moist and delicious like a meal in itself too. Thanks so much for this recipe.
Great cake….took it on a picnic & it all went. Did a butter cream cheese icing spread….indulgent but so good. Moist & delicious.
Hello, my sister recommended this so I will make it for my daughter’s birthday next weekend. Does the cake freeze well (pre icing)?
Hi can you used buttercream instead of this frosting? Thanks
I made this carrot cake for Mothers Day and it was an absolute hit . I wa squeezed that the icing would be too buttery but it was perfect . It was loved so much I am going to make the cup cake version for school lunchboxes.
This is the best cake ever! I cannot praise it too highly.I am making it again tomorrow for my husband’s birthday.
I haven’t tried this cake yet. But I will tomorrow.
But gee Dozer! I love this dog.
I have a corgi cross, who behaves just like Dozer. He always is there to help with the clean up.❤️
It was so good and east to make
Thanks a lot, i made it many times but always comes sticky. any idea why ?
Another awesome recipe, a very moist cake, love it.
This carrot cake was so delicious! It’s a make again for sure. I trust the process of any and all the wonderful recipes posted on recipetineats, I was compelled, however, to use my late Mom’s carrot cake icing (less sugar and a nostagically personal flavour for me) ~ 8 oz block cream cheese, 4 Tbsp butter, 2.5 Cups Icing sugar, 2 tsp, Vanilla extract whipped up all fluffy. I used crushed pecans with some reserved for dressing the top, well drained and pressed crushed pineapple. It’s a beautiful cake I chose to bake in the 9″ x 13″ glass pyrex. Thanks Dorothy, Nagi and quality control officer Dozer!
Nagi , this cake was an absolute hit and this was my first time making carrot cake , your recipes never miss! I’ve made your chocolate cake recipe several times and it always comes out perfect!
I need to make this in advance, Can I freeze it after baking and then thaw and ice it when required?
Hi Nagi
This is a five star Carrot Cake recipe. Love it!
I also love your website.
I also like how you’ve displayed humility, admitting this tops your own recipe.
Many thanks
Sue