Carrot Cake Recipe

4.90 from 19 votes

The only Carrot Cake Recipe, with the richest and creamiest cream cheese frosting, you'll ever want to have! This deliciously moist cake stands tall with four thick layers and is perfect for so many special occasions, all year long!

Prep Time15

Cook Time28

cooling and chilling time1 15

Total Time2 28

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: American

Servings:

Calories: 1193kcal

Author: Teri & Jenny

Equipment

Ateco Round Tip #4
Ateco Star Tip #15
piping bags
violet gel food coloring
lemon yellow gel food coloring
leaf green gel food coloring
sunset orange gel food coloring
buckeye brown gel food coloring

Ingredients

carrot cake

4 1/2 cups cake flour
4 tsp baking powder
2 tsp baking soda
2 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled
2 cups light brown sugar
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1 1/2 cups unsweetened applesauce
6 large eggs, room temperature
2 tsp vanilla extract
4 cups finely grated carrots
1 cup dried currants (raisins are fine)

cream cheese frosting

16 ounces softened cream cheese
1 cup softened unsalted butter
5 cups sifted powdered sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
pinch salt

garnish

1/2 cup finely chopped walnuts

US Customary - Metric

Instructions

carrot cake

Preheat oven to 350˚F. Lightly grease bottom and sides of 4 (9 inch) cake pans. Line bottoms with parchment paper. Set aside.
Place flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, salt, and nutmeg into a large mixing bowl and whisk together.
In another mixing bowl combine butter, sugars, applesauce, eggs, and vanilla and whisk together.
Pour the wet mixture into the dry mixture, in thirds, stirring together after each addition.
Continue to stir batter until completely combined and no dry spots remain. Fold in carrots and currants.
Fill each prepared cake pan evenly with batter.
Bake cake rounds in center rack of oven for 24 to 28 minutes or until a toothpick comes out with just a few crumbs on it, when inserted into the center of each round.
Cool cake rounds for 15 minutes. Then remove each cake from cake pans, peel away parchment and transfer to cooling racks. Cool completely. Refrigerate cake layers for at least 2 hours.

cream cheese frosting

With a stand mixer, fitted with a paddle attachment, beat together the cream cheese and butter until light and fluffy. Scrape down sides of the bowl.
Add powdered sugar, 1/2 cup at a time and continue to beat together.
Add vanilla and salt and scrape down sides of the bowl and continue to beat together until light and fluffy. Set aside 1 1/2 cups of frosting.

assembly

Slice off rounded cake tops to level them. (Discard cake scraps or keep for snacking)
Spread a thin layer of frosting onto the top of one cake round and top with another cake round. Repeat until all cake rounds are stacked into 4 layers with frosting between each layer.
Frost the sides and top with a very thin layer of frosting and refrigerate cake for an hour.
While crumb coated cake chills, divide remaining cup frosting in 1/2. In one bowl add 2 drops violet food coloring, 3 drops lemon yellow, and 1 to 2 drops leaf green. Stir together until completely combined and you produce a moss green color.
In the other bowl of frosting add 3 drops of sunset orange food coloring and 1 to 2 drops buckeye brown. Stir together until completely combined and you produce a moss green color.
Fill orange frosting in piping bag with round tip and fill green frosting in piping bag with star tip.
Remove chilled cake from the refrigerator and add another layer of frosting. Sprinkle crushed walnuts bits over the sides and top of cake. Refrigerate cake again for 30 minutes.
Using the orange frosting, pipe small (3/4 inch) carrots all over cake. Using the green frosting, pipe stems on top of each carrot.

Notes

Tips and Tricks for Carrot Cake Success

A lot of carrot cake recipes use oil instead of butter, which helps to keep the cake moist, but we love using butter in our recipe for the flavor and the tender crumb the fat in the butter provides. We also use plenty of applesauce and finely grated carrot to ensure that even without the oil, the cake is still fluffy and moist.
When measuring the dry ingredients, we use the scoop and level method. Using this method will give you the most accurate results for our cake!
If you would like to be able to pipe large designs onto the cake with our cream cheese frosting, add an additional 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 cups of powdered to the frosting, 1/2 cup at a time, until your desired stiffness has been reached. The frosting will still be delicious, just not as creamy or decadent and it will be sweeter in flavor.
The applesauce is an important ingredient in our carrot cake recipe because it adds moisture to the cake, so you're guaranteed to have a soft and moist cake.
It's important to shred your own carrots! Pre-shredded ones are too thick and dry and won't add the best flavor or provide the needed moisture for this cake.
The recipe can be halved to make 1 (8"x 8") cake, with an increased bake time of 36 to 38 minutes.

Nutrition