This is my all-time favorite carrot cake recipe for many reasons: it’s extra moist, has the most incredible spice flavor, is so easy to throw together, and is downright irresistible with cream cheese frosting. It’s also one of those cakes that gets even better with time – making it a day or two ahead yields an even more moist and flavorful cake! The only real challenge with this recipe is grating the carrots by hand, but that part does make for a great arm workout. Originally published in my book, Anyone Can Cake, I finally decided that it’s time to share this recipe here for all to enjoy!
The Best Carrot Cake Recipe
I am a big fan of carrot cake, so when I was writing this recipe I had high expectations. It had to be extra moist (and stay moist for days), beautifully spiced, and be perfectly structured with just the right amount of shredded carrot texture. Luckily I have some neighbors who are also fellow carrot cake fans and helped me taste test the way to the best carrot cake recipe! This one checks all the boxes.
It’s pretty traditional to pair carrot cake with cream cheese frosting, which is what I did here. The tanginess of the cream cheese flavor paired with the spiced carrot cake is absolutely divine. It basically melts in your mouth and I found it very hard to stop sneaking bites while photographing the slices!
Carrot Cake Ingredients & Substitutions
This carrot cake recipe has a lot of key ingredients that make it perfectly structured, extra moist, and beautifully spiced. I’ll explain the most important ones below and share what you can use as substitutes if needed.
- All-purpose flour. Also known as plain flour, all-purpose flour has the right amount of protein content to give this cake the best structure. While I love cake flour in lots of my other recipes, it doesn’t have enough protein content to bind the heavier ingredients together or keep those shredded carrots suspended in the baking process. That said, I can’t recommend substituting the all-purpose flour for any other kind, unless you want to experiment with gluten-free all-purpose flour (I haven’t tried it yet, but have a feeling it would work. Will update once I do try it!).
- Baking soda + baking powder. The leavening agents in this cake, which help it rise during the baking process.
- Spices. I love a spiced carrot cake, so I use plenty of cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and cloves.
- Granulated sugar + brown sugar. The combination of these two sugars help sweeten the carrot cake perfectly, and the brown sugar in particular adds a great depth of flavor.
- Vegetable oil. This is an oil-based cake (instead of butter-based) which makes it perfectly moist. I like to use plain vegetable oil, but you can use any kind of oil that you’re used to baking with (canola, avocado, olive, etc) as an alternative.
- Eggs. There are four large eggs in this recipe, which is pretty standard for a carrot cake recipe. They help bind all of these ingredients together and create a uniform texture while also helping the cake rise.
- Unsweetened Applesauce. This really boosts the moisture and helps create a really tender crumb. The pectin in applesauce also acts as a binding ingredient. You’ll want to make sure you use unsweetened applesauce since we’re already adding granulated sugar and brown sugar to sweeten this cake.
- Grated Carrots. You’ll need about four large carrots for this recipe, peeled and grated. I always grate my carrots by hand using the small-hole side of a box grater. This yields the perfect carrot shreds that blend into the batter well and bake into a beautiful crumb.
Carrot Cake Add-In Ideas
While I love carrot cake without any add-ins, some people enjoy loading up their carrot cake batter with things like raisins, nuts, or shredded coconut. If you are one of those people, here are some extras you can fold in with the carrots at the end of this recipe:
- 1 Cup (145g) raisins
- ½ Cup (39g) shredded coconut
- Up to 2 Cups (218g) toasted pecans
You can feel free to combine these add-ins, but be sure not to exceed 2 Cups worth of extra ingredients.
How to Decorate a Carrot Cake
When paired with cream cheese buttercream, carrot cake is so delicious that you don’t really have to overcompensate with decorating. You could easily frost a rustic finish with the cream cheese frosting and call it a day. But, there are a couple ways you can elevate the design when it comes to carrot cake to make it as fun or elegant as you want!
For the carrot cake pictured, I decided to go all-in on the carrot theme. I frosted a smooth buttercream finish, then piped some simple carrots in a random pattern all over the cake. To make the little carrots, I reserved about ½ Cup of the cream cheese buttercream, tinted half of it orange and the other half green, then added each color to a piping bag fitted with Wilton Tip 2. First I piped the carrots using a back-and-forth motion to create the elongated triangles. Then, I topped each carrot with a few green lines to look like little stems.
After I piped the carrots, I added the rest of the uncolored cream cheese frosting into a piping bag fitted with Wilton Tip 4B and piped shell borders on the top and bottom of the cake. I think it turned out so fun!
If you’d rather go with a more elegant design for your carrot cake, it also looks great with a semi-naked finish and topped with edible flowers like the photo below.
Tips for Decorating with Cream Cheese Buttercream
In the past, I dreaded working with cream cheese buttercream because I found it so finicky. It’s a much softer frosting than standard American buttercream, but over the years I’ve figured out ways to make it extra stable for cake decorating, even when piping details! Here are a few best practices:
- Use full-fat brick-style cream cheese. It’s critical that you don’t use low-fat or spreadable cream cheese, as these variations contain way more water than the full-fat brick kind. That means your frosting will be extra soft, liquidy, and impossible to decorate with. I always use the Philadelphia brand, but feel free to experiment with other brands as long as they meet the general requirements.
- Add powdered sugar + cornstarch. These two ingredients help thicken the cream cheese frosting. I use the minimum amount of powdered sugar in this recipe to keep the sweetness down yet keep the stability. But to make it extra stable, I like to add a little cornstarch (aka corn flour) for even more structure. You won’t be able to taste this in the frosting, but it works wonders for thickening.
- Use refrigeration. If you find that your kitchen environment is humid or the frosting is still a bit soft, pop it in the refrigerator for 10-15 minutes, then re-mix it on low in your stand mixer. The butter in the recipe will solidify a little bit in the refrigerator, so the overall buttercream will feel a bit thicker and easier to work with afterwards.
Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting
Ingredients
Carrot Cake
- 2 1/2 Cups (315g) all-purpose flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 tsp ground nutmeg
- 1 tsp ground ginger
- 1/4 tsp ground cloves
- 1/2 Cup (100g) granulated sugar
- 1 1/2 Cups (300g) packed brown sugar light or dark
- 1 Cup (240ml) vegetable oil
- 4 large eggs, room temperature
- 3/4 Cup (135g) unsweetened applesauce
- 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 2 Cups (260g) grated carrots about 4 large
Cream Cheese Buttercream
- 8 Cups (960g) powdered sugar
- 1/4 Cup (32g) cornstarch* optional, see notes
- 1 Cup (226g) unsalted butter, room temperature
- 16 Oz (452g) full-fat brick-style cream cheese**, room temperature NOT the spread
- 1 Tbsp pure vanilla extract
- 1/4 tsp salt, or to taste
Instructions
Make the Carrot Cake
- Preheat the oven to 350ºF/177ºF and prepare three 6-inch or two 8-inch cake pans by spraying the sides with cooking spray and fitting a parchment paper circle to the bottoms.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and cloves. In another medium bowl, whisk together the white and brown sugars, vegetable oil, eggs, applesauce, and vanilla.
- Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and fold together using a rubber spatula until just combined, then fold in the grated carrots. At this point you can fold in any add-ins if you wish.***
- Pour the batter evenly between the prepared cake pans and bake for 35-40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Allow the cakes to cool in the pan for 10 minutes before turning them out to cool fully on a wire rack or baking sheet.
Make the Cream Cheese Buttercream
- Sift together the powdered sugar and cornstarch (if using) and set aside. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and cream cheese on medium-high until light, fluffy, and uniform (no lumps), about 5 minutes.
- Turn the mixer to low speed and add the powdered sugar and cornstarch mixture a few cups at a time, mixing thoroughly after each addition and scraping down the bowl and paddle as needed. Add the vanilla and salt and mix on low for another minute, until fully combined and smooth.
Assembly
- Once the cake layers have cooled completely, level them to your desired height. Fill and stack the cake layers with cream cheese buttercream, then crumb coat the cake with more cream cheese buttercream. Refrigerate the crumb coated cake for at least 30 minutes to let the frosting firm up.
- To create the design pictured, use the cream cheese frosting to create a smooth finish on the cake. Refrigerate the cake for an additional 20 minutes to let the frosting firm up while you prepare the piping bags.
- Create the Carrot Design: Reserve about ½ Cup of the cream cheese buttercream and divide it into two different bowls. Tint the first bowl with orange food coloring, then tint the other bowl with green food coloring. Add each color into a piping bag fitted with Wilton Tip 2. On the cold frosted cake, pipe the carrots with the orange buttercream using a back-and-forth motion to create elongated triangles in a random pattern. Then, top each carrot with a few green lines to look like little stems.
- To finish, add the rest of the uncolored cream cheese buttercream into a piping bag fitted with Wilton Tip 4B. Pipe a shell border around the bottom of the cake, then pipe shell border along the top edge of the cake.
Notes
- The carrot cakes can be made ahead and stored, wrapped in plastic wrap, at room temperature for up to two days. Alternatively, you can store the wrapped cake layers in the freezer for up to 2 months before thawing and frosting.
- The cream cheese buttercream can be made ahead and stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to two weeks. When you’re ready to use it, bring it back to room temperature and re-mix it with your stand mixer on low speed until it’s smooth and uniform.
- The decorated cake can be stored in the refrigerator for up to 5 days. Take it out of the refrigerator an hour or two before serving – it stores best cold but tastes best at room temperature.
Because of you Christmas was a hit! Thank you for all you do! I made this carrot cake paired with your brown butter cream cheese frosting for Christmas eve dessert and it was such a hit. One person said it was the best dessert they have ever had In their life. Everyone raved about it non stop. Nobody left a speck on their plate they ate it all. I’ve never been so proud to bake something. The cakes were the most perfect cake I have ever baked they came right out of the pans were all even and had no dome and were so insanely moist. I have been baking 25 years and never had a cake recipe be so utterly perfect. I made a 3 layer 8 inch cake so I used a calculator to 1.5x times the recipe and then 1.3x times the frosting (the brown butter cream cheese frosting you use in another recipe) I think if you wanted to decorate the cake with piping I’d 1.5x the frosting. But otherwise it was perfect! I used 1 cup of frosting between each layer and 1 cup of frosting for the crumb coat and around 2 cups or less for the final coat it was a perfect amount of frosting. It crusted perfectly and was delicious. Thank you so much for making my holidays a stunning success! (For anyone wondering I baked the three 8 inch layers all at once took 33 minutes. Then cooled 30 minutes in the pans, removed cooled 15 minutes on a cooling rack. Wrapped in plastic wrap and put them in the fridge for 4 hours then trimmed filled and crumb coated then back into the fridge 30 minutes then final coat)
I am so happy to hear that, Jaclyn! I need to try this carrot cake with brown butter cream cheese frosting now, it sounds delicious!!
Hi thank you so much for this beautiful recipe! Do you think your brown butter cream cheese frosting would work well with this? Or could I just brown the butter for this frosting recipe and it would taste the same as your brown butter cream cheese frosting? Would I need to double the frosting for a 3 layer 8 inch cake? Thank you
Hi Jackie! Yes, my brown butter cream cheese frosting tastes amazing with carrot cake! You’ll want to make a double batch of it for a 3-layer 8-inch cake. Enjoy!
Hello, is it possible to make this cake in a sheet pan? I didn’t see it in your sheet pan conversion post.
Hi VG! Yes, you can make it in a 9×13 pan. Bake at 325F and check for doneness at 35 minutes. Enjoy!
I’m looking to make a recipe, but I don’t have any unsweetened applesauce on hand. Can I use crushed pineapple instead?
Hi Kendra! I haven’t tried that but I’ve heard it works as an applesauce substitute! Let me know if you try it 🙂
Can I use this recipe for cupcakes? How long would baking time be? I’ve used multiple of your recipes and they always turn out delicious!
I just came across your “How to Bake My Layer Cake Recipes as Cupcakes” entry and found the answer. Thank you so much the recipe! Can’t wait to try it out for Easter.
I made the SpIced Apple Cake for my son’s birthday and it was a hit. I would like to make 3 eight inch cake layers for more servings can I increase the recipe by 50% and maintain the integrity of the recipe?
Yay, Kelly! I’m so glad the apple spice cake recipe was a hit. If you want to make three 8-inch layers, make 1.5x the recipe and it should work just fine!
I’m sure you’ve answered this somewhere but if I wanted to make this a 3-tier 8” cake, how much more batter and icing would I need? Thank you!
Hi Jenna! For a 3-layer 8-inch cake you’ll want to make 1.5x the recipe. So, multiply each ingredient by 1.5 🙂