Easy Carrot Cake Recipe In 30 Min

Carrot Cake Recipe. I’m going to make the best carrot cake. This is moist, loaded with amazing carrot flavor, perfectly spiced, and I’m craving some carrot cake. We’ve got the oven-free heated so let’s get started. Set the oven to degrees Fahrenheit with the rack in the center then butter two nine-inch cake pans. You’ll also want to line the bottom with parchment paper and brush some butter over the top. This will ensure easy release.

Set those aside and we’re going to start with making the cake batter. Once you have all of your ingredients measured out, this cake comes together fast and is easy to make. In the first mixing bowl, combine the dry ingredients. That’s flour, both of your sugars, white and light brown sugar, also baking soda, baking powder, and salt, add the spices which are cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, and ground cloves. The cloves are optional but nice Carrot Cake.

Whisk that together until it’s well combined breaking up any clumps of brown sugar. Now, in a second large mixing bowl, we’re going to combine the wet ingredients. Start with some light olive oil and you can substitute that. the recipe post for substitution ideas. Also, add some apple sauce and apple sauce add moisture and natural sweetness then add your eggs. Whisk those together until they’re well combined. Now, we’re going to add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients.

Carrot Cake Recipe/Homemade Carrot Cake

I like using a spatula for this that way I can scrape the bowl and get every drop in there. Then we’re going to use that same spatula to fold the mixture together. Fold scraping from the bottom to catch any pockets of flour and continue folding until no streaks of flour remain. Now you’ll need ounces of carrots which is about six medium carrots. Peel them and grate them on the fine holes of a box grater. Finally grating the carrot this way is important.

It will incorporate better into the cake batter. Bake up properly and it won’t sink to the bottom of the cake layers. When you’re done grate you should have about three cups of finely grated carrot. Add the carrot to your batter. This is also when you add your raisins and I like to use golden raisins and the raisins are optional. Not everybody loves raisins in their dessert. Carrot Cake Also, add your chopped pecans, and again, if there’s somebody who doesn’t love nuts, you can leave the nuts out.

Use a spatula to fold the ingredients together until they’re well incorporated. Now, divide the batter evenly between your prepared cake pans. You can roughly eyeball the quantity but I do like even cake layers so I like to check them with my kitchen scale and I will link to this in the notes. It’s my favorite kitchen scale and it gets a lot of use in my kitchen. The cake pan should feel heavy but they do bake up beautifully. Transfer those to your fully preheated oven

Add Ingredients In Carrot Cake

Bake on the center rack for about two minutes. When they’re done, the tops should be set and a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake will come out clean. These are looking perfect. We’re going to leave them in the cake pans for about two minutes to cool then transfer to a wire rack to let them cool completely before applying frosting. Once they’ve had a chance to rest in the pans, I do like to use a small plastic knife or this cake-release tool,

Run it around the edges of your cake and it’ll come out much easier. To easily transfer to a rack, set the rack over the cake, flip it over, and release the cake pan. Now, you can peel back and discard that parchment paper and repeat with the second cake layer. You can already tell this cake is going to be so moist and tender and loaded with carrots. Carrot Cake You’ll need to let those cool completely to room temperature. Once they’ve cooled, you can start making the frosting.

Cream cheese frosting is the classic choice for carrot cake and our recipe is so easy. In a large mixing bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer, beat together three sticks or one and a half cups of softened unsalted butter. Beat that on high speed for one minute or until it’s lightened in color and a stand mixer probably would have been a better choice considering how much butter is all over my kitchen now. Beat in eight ounces of softened cream cheese.

Easy Carrot Cake Recipe With Easy Steps

Beat those together until they’re well combined scraping down the bowl as needed. Now, beat in salt and vanilla extract. And this is my two-ingredient homemade vanilla extract. I love it for all of my baking projects and I will leave a link to the easy recipe in the notes. Once those are combined, it’s time to add the sugar. I’m using a total of four cups of powdered sugar and adding that one cup at a time beating with each addition. This will ensure you don’t end up in a cloud of powdered sugar.

And you can also add the powdered sugar to taste if you prefer a less sweet frosting. Once all of the sugar is incorporated, kick the mixer up to high speed and beat for two to three minutes or until it’s whipped, thick, and spreadable. You’ll need to scrape down the bowl a couple of times to make sure it’s all well blended. What I love about this cream cheese frosting is it’s thick and easy to pipe onto cakes and it’s not runny.

Alright, our cake layers have baked and cooled and our frosting is ready so it’s time to assemble. Place the first layer of cake onto a cake stand with the base side down. Add a generous layer of cream cheese frosting over the top. I find using an offset spatula to spread the frosting makes the process so much easier and I will leave links to this and all of my favorite baking tools in the recipe notes. Now, carefully top with your next cake layer and I like to put this bottom side up.

Make Cream For Carrot Cake Recipe

This gives me a very flat and even surface to decorate. Admittedly, I am not a trained cake decorator but I have learned some things over the years. To start frosting the cake, I like to add some frosting and then, we’re going to do what we call crumb coating. So, we want to get a nice, thin layer of frosting all around the cake. This secures the crumbs so you don’t have crumbs flying all over the place and getting your frosting messy. Also, if you prefer not to fuss with the decorating,

You can just apply the frosting however you prefer, a give it a fun rustic look. There’s no shame in that. Once we have the crumb coat done, I’m going to add some more frosting to the top and sides to completely cover the crumbs. I’d also like to admit that I had no plans for decorating this cake and I’m completely doing this on the fly you can do the same and make it your carrot cake. For a clean presentation, wipe the edge of your cake pan with a paper towel.

Now, the rest of this process is completely optional. I like to add a fun little pattern pulling up on my offset spatula around the edges Then, we’re going to take a piping bag fitted with a large open star tip and fill it with the rest of the frosting. Prime your bag, twist the top closed and pipe beautiful little puffs all around the cake. You can kind of gauge how many puffs or how big those puffs should be based on how much frosting you have left. Okay.

Garnish And Serve Carrot Cake

Also, whenever there are nuts in the cake, I like to let people know just in case there are allergies. So, sprinkle on some chopped pecans around the edges of your cake. It adds a pretty border and makes it look more like a carrot cake. Alright. I am a trained cake decorator, self-taught but that’s okay. It doesn’t have to be perfect. I like it when a carrot cake looks a little bit rustic, it’s nice. Alright, and you can decorate it any way you want to.

You can keep it simple and just sprinkle nuts all over it. Whatever you like to do and if you make this cake, make sure to tag me so I can see your beautiful creations. Okay and once it’s decorated. At this point, you can refrigerate it. I like to chill it just a little bit. It makes it a little easier to slice. You can also freeze the entire cake which I love because it makes it a make-a-head dessert. We’re going to pop this in the fridge for a little bit and then we’re going to dig right in because I cannot wait.

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I love this cake. Be right back. Alright, it is not fully chilled yet but who can wait for that? I want some cake and I’m going to dig right into this because we need to do a taste test. Am I right? Mm hmm. Okay, here we go. This is one amazing cake. Alright, here we go. Now, I gotta let you guys look at this. Look at the textures here. So good. Okay, here we go. Gonna plate that up. Oh. The anticipation is real. Okay, here we go. Look at how soft and tender this crumb is.

It’s so moist and just wonderful. I mean, think about there’s three cups of shredded carrot in there and apple sauce. I mean, it’s not just the carrot cake. It’s not overly sweet like grocery store carrot cakes tend to be kind of like yucky sweet. Carrot Cake This is just the right balance of sweetness and it has a lot of natural sweetness in there too from the carrots And the apple sauce and then this frosting, I’m telling you, this is the same frosting we used for our popular red velvet cake.