Easy carrot cake recipe

This easy carrot cake recipe with cream cheese frosting is packed with crunchy walnuts, sweet carrots, orange zest, and spices like cinnamon and nutmeg. Easily made at home, this cake will surely become one of your favorites.

Jump to:

• Why you should make this cake
• Ingredients you will need
• Cooking tips
• Step by step directions
• Flavor variations
• How to decorate carrot cake
• FAQ
• More cake recipes you may like
• Recipe card

Why you should make this cake

It is extremely moist. Same as these Carrot cake muffins, my easy carrot cake recipe is made with the addition of vegetable oil which keeps it soft and moist even after refrigeration.

It’s not overly sweet. The cream cheese frosting is not loaded with cups and cups of powdered sugar like American buttercream, which makes this cake perfectly sweetened.

It’s a very simple carrot cake recipe. If you have a hand mixer, a couple of bowls, and cake pans at home, you can make this cake. The best part is that you don’t need to keep your freshly-assembled cake in the fridge for ages before serving it. 

Ingredients you will need

Flour – Use either all-purpose flour or cake flour to make this easy carrot cake recipe.

Leavening agents – You will need both baking powder and baking soda to help the sponge cake to rise.

Sugar – For the carrot cake layers, I use brown sugar and white sugar. For the frosting, powdered sugar.

Carrots and oranges – Apart from freshly-grated carrots, I use orange zest and a little bit of orange juice. Alternatively, you can use lemon.

Spices and salt – My additional flavorings are ground cinnamon, nutmeg, and of course salt. You can also add some ground ginger, clove, and allspice, but I like to not flood my carrot cake with too many different flavors.

Eggs – Use two large eggs at room temperature. 

Fats – For the sponge cake, I use melted unsalted butter and canola oil (sunflower seed oil will work as well). For the frosting, you’ll need unsalted butter at room temperature.

Cream cheese – Let your cheese (I use Original Philadelphia cream cheese) come to room temperature before adding it to the butter.

Vanilla – I use vanilla extract to flavor the cream.

Walnuts – I use chopped nuts to make the cake batter and to decorate my cake.

Cooking tips

Bake the cake batter right away. This carrot cake batter relies on baking soda and baking powder to rise in the oven. Once you combine dry and wet ingredients, the leavening agents activate and create air bubbles that will expand during baking and lift your cake. So, don’t wait until all the bubbles burst, and bake your cake layers right away.

Don’t overmix the cake batter. Overmixing makes your sponge cake tougher and denser.

Don’t overbeat the cream. Once you’ve added cream cheese, you’ll need to be careful not to overbeat. If your cream becomes grainy, you can save it by gently heating it in the microwave for 10 seconds and beating it again. However, if your cream splits so you see liquids in the bowl, you need to make a new batch.

Step by step directions

For the cake layers

1. Preheat the oven to 160C (320F) and line the bottoms of two 7” (17-18cm) round cake pans with parchment paper. The sides can be buttered and floured or lined with paper as well.

2. In a bowl, combine the flour, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking powder, baking soda, and walnuts.

3. Whip the eggs with white and brown sugar until pale and doubled in volume.

4. Add the melted butter and oil. Mix well.

5. Add the carrots, orange zest, and juice and mix again.

6. Fold in the dry ingredients using a rubber spatula.

7. Divide the cake batter between two cake pans and bake for 27 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

8. Let the cake layers cool down before assembling the cake.

For the cream

1. Beat the butter with powdered sugar until fluffy and pale.

2. Add the cream cheese and beat on medium until well incorporated. 

Assembling the cake

1. Spread a little bit of cream on the plate or a cake stand that you’ll use to assemble the cake. Place the first cake layer on top and gently press to attach.

2. Spread an even layer of cream on top.

3. Place the second cake layer on top. Use the rest of the cream to frost the cake.

4. Decorate to your taste and refrigerate for 1-2 hours, or overnight before serving.

Flavor variations

Add raisins or other dried berries or fruits – Adding pineapple, raisins, or chopped prunes will add more sweetness, flavor, and texture variety to your homemade carrot cake.

Other nuts – You can replace walnuts with chopped pecans or you can roast or toast nuts of your choice before adding them to the carrot cake batter.

Jam – You can add fruit or berry jam in between the cake layers together with cream cheese frosting.

Another frosting – If you don’t like the cream cheese taste, you can make mascarpone cheese frosting instead, like in this Caramel cake recipe.

How to decorate carrot cake

Carrot cake is usually made during Easter, so we welcome all decorations that include marzipan or fondant carrots or bunnies, as well as chocolate eggs. 

You can also make more frosting and color it with gel or liquid food coloring to pipe on your cake in all sorts of patterns.

If you’re more conservative, decorate your cake with halved or chopped walnuts or pecans.

FAQ

More cake recipes you may like

Carrot cake muffins

Banana walnut bread

Apple cinnamon muffins

Recipe card