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.
Hi Nagi! Thanks for this yummy looking recipe. I’m wondering if I could make this recipe into muffins instead of cake?
Hi Yuly, you sure can! I would cook for 25-30 minutes. N x
I can’t wait to try your chocolate cake and choux pastry
I hope you love them Zama! N x
Loved this cake.Can you freeze one of the cakes if uniced?
Yes definitely! N x
Oh. My. God.
Nagi, yet another winner from your recipes. I’d never made this cake before but my sister and I were craving it. Came out so perfect! I made one round and one loaf so I could force myself to take half to work. Such a hit all around. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
PS – it is a TON of icing of you’re not doing layered cake 😅 I forgot about that!
Best carrot cake I’ve ever cooked
Wahoo! That’s great to hear Deb 🙂 N x
Thank you Nagi for this recipe. I was looking for something sweet I could make to celebrate Easter during this quarantine and I came across this recipe. Luckily I had everything I needed in my pantry. Cake came out moist and it tastes delicious. I followed along your video and it made it super easy to make. Thanks again 😋
Wahoo, I’m so glad you enjoyed it Loreto! N x
Possibly the best carrot cake recipe I’ve baked. Very moist, the pecans are a great addition.
Hi Nagi,
First of all, I absolutely love your recipes and have been cooking them for the past year.
I am hoping to try the carrot cake tomorrow, however the problem is I only have x1 24cm round spring form cake pan and I was hoping just to make the one cake in this. Will I have too much mixture for the texture of the cake to come out ok or should I halve or alternatively make a few muffins as well?
Hi Ajaya, I talk about this in the recipe notes – point 7. Unfortunately you cannot make this in a single pan. N x
Can I use self raising flour and not put bicarb soda? We have no supply of flour due to Covid 🙁
Dear Nagi,
is there a substitute for a block cream cheese, perhaps mascarpone or is it still too soft? Because I’m not sure whether I can get it here, beside the regular spreadable cream cheese.
Btw I wanna make it tomorrow for Easter as well🤩 Looove all your recipes.
Greetings from Croatian fan in AbuDhabi 😘
Hi Nagi! Am I able to use self rising flour?
Hi nagi
I’ve only got tinned pineapple chunks, do you think I can use those? Thanks Kylie
Hi Kylie, just give them a quick chop – they will be fine! N x
Thanks Nagi!
I did and was great!
Just made this cake. OMG it is perfect. Thank you Nagi
Hi Nagi, do you think I could roughly blitz a tin of pineapple rings?
You’re so welcome Selena, I’m so glad you loved it! N x
Love, love, love….
Thanks Rue! N x
Hi Nagi, I made a very similar cake from a American recipe and it was delicious but a bit too moist to easily pick up. This once was perfect so thank you Nagi and Dorothy.
I’m so glad you enjoyed it Michelle! N x
Best carrot cake ever!
Wahoo! I’m so happy you enjoyed it Ruth! N x
Absolutely delicious! I did make muffins and the mixture made 14 large muffins, I baked them for 23mins. The only change I made is that substituted the nuts with sultanas (I didn’t have any). Thank you for another easy recipe.
Thanks Ainsley and Nagi! I really love the idea of making this as muffins 🙂
Sounds great Ainsley!! N x
Hi Nagi, If i half the serving size from 12 to 6 – would i be able to make this in one round cake pan?
thank you!
Hi Christine – yes definitely! Enjoy! N x
Great thank you xx
I baked this carrot cake yesterday for my partner’s birthday. The cake is really good and got the thumbs up from both my partner and her granddaughter. The cake is easy to make. I put lemon in the cream cheese icing instead of vanilla because that is my partner’s favourite. I had a slice of cake for breakfast today and the flavours had developed even more. This is a keeper. Thank you Nagi and Dorothy for sharing this wonderful recipe.
Cake for breakfast?! I LOVE THIS! N x
I was just wondering whether I could convert this mixture to muffins?
Hi Ainsley, I havent tried to be honest but I imagine so! N x
tis is an amazing website thanks girl does it have to be cream cheese or can it be just cream