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.
We loved the cake. Thanks for the recipe. It’s a definite keeper! It sliced well from fridge with hot clean knife. It has a lovely texture. Soft, moist but still light.
I used my own icing mix though as recipe looked too buttery & sweet for us. I used 250cheese, 125butter,200g icing, vanilla. Used it all to fill, top and sides 20cm 2 layer cake & was right amount. I’ve realised since that you have a more cheesy frosting on your carrot cupcakes recipe.
I roasted nuts first to add extra flavour. I also candied some whole roasted pecans for decorating top using reduced leftover pineapple juice & sugar, just for something different which was ok. I’d probably just stick to normal sugar & water next time but it was a fun experiment.
Is there any chance you could make your printable recipe header a bit smaller so we end with less pages to print?
Cannot understand some of the negative comments. This cake turned out to be one of the best. I made it as a single layer cake and it was perfect. Beautifully moist. Full of flavour . Received rave reviews from all my family. Will definitely be making it again and again. Thank you Nagi. I love ALL your recipes.
Absolutely the best ever carrot cake. My new fav, perfect! Thank you for this fabulous recipe. I love how accurately you describe your recipes, measuring molds, extending baking time and the most important – metric ingredients! We, Europeans, are really grateful 😀
Indeed, the BEST carrot cake recipe!
I don’t know where I went wrong but my cake turned out tasting really weird. It tasted raw (it was cooked all the way through) and very doughy.
Carrot cake turned out great, but I was not keen on the frosting tasted to buttery instead of cream cheesy
I know what you mean. Try these quantities, i guarantee cream cheese trading icing.
250 g BLOCK of cream cheese, room temperature
▢115 g butter, room temperature
▢2 cups icing sugar
▢1 teaspoon lemon juice
▢1 teaspoon vanilla extract
▢⅛ teaspoon salt
Thanks for the suggestion Kat. I loved the cake, but added lemon juice to the OG icing as it was too sweet. Your icing sounds perfect.
Quite disappointed actually sadly. I was really really feeling like carrot cake. I have never made a carrot cake before.
This isn’t a cheep recipe to make so I wasn’t impressed at all.
The pineapple in the crushed tin like she recommended was way too big for the cake even though it was CRUSHED. Such a disappointment. I usually live nagis recipes but this was a horrible cake. the cream cheese was the only part worth eating. If I was to make it again (probably won’t though) I would leave out the pineapple all together, it doesn’t suit carrot cake they do not belong together.
Wow, I’m shocked, I thought this was the best carrot cake I have ever had…and I absolutely love carrot cake
That’s so interesting, I made it and my crushed pineapple was perfectly shredded in the tin so when I ate my cake I couldn’t even see pineapple but it was amazingly moist. Are you in Australia? Perhaps try shredding the pineapple if the tins you find aren’t crushed enough. This was the best cake I’ve ever made!
Will this taste good as a loaf without frosting?
made this delicious cake for my brothers birthday recently
everyone loved it and my brother refused to give me any leftovers.
Would this work as a loaf cake without frosting? Will it taste nice without the frosting i mean
Thankyou Nagi for another great recipe. I added 1/2 cup sultanas in place of walnuts as I don’t like nuts in cakes. I cooked the cake in 3 seven inch tins. The cake had a wonderful fluffy texture. The frosting was too sweet for me so will make it again with only half of the icing sugar. I also had a lot of frosting left over. Definitely a wonderful carrot cake to make again.
Hi Nagi,
What can you do if you don’t have block cream cheese available?
So yum! I have made this twice over the last 2 weeks, the first in cupcake form and the second as a two tiered cake. Both super moist and yummy, but with the cake I added lemon zest to the cream cheese frosting and it took it to another level!
Can I leave out pineapple as I do not like. It
Tried this recipe a couple of days ago, was so yummy! I just made it into cupcakes and muffins instead of big cakes. It still worked really well, I only added some sultanas as the only difference. I might try less sugar next time as it is quite sweet. The icing is really yummy too
I made this cake with gluten free flour, it was simply delicious and moist. Wasn’t breaking apart at all.
Looking forward to making this tomorrow however as I only have 1x 22.5 cm round pan I’m thinking of baking the 2 batches one at a time. my question is if is the mixed Batter is able to stay out for the during of the first baking time without any issues? Or does it need to be baked straight away ? (If that’s the case I’ll just bake in 1x rectangular pan as mentioned in recipe)
Thanks in advance
best carrot cake. people who told me the only cake they like is carrot cake gave it rave reviews 🙂 easy to make, not over the top sweet or rich – just moist and fresh kinda sweet…. thanks.
Can you use almond milk instead of white milk?
Can this be made as one cake or does it have to be 2
I love this recipe! It’s my first time to make a carrot cake and it’s so good! My baking techniques are still for a novice so the goodness really comes from this recipe! Just want to thank you Nagi and Dorothy for generously sharing this yummy cake to us! 🫶🏽