EASY CARROT CAKE RECIPE with Cream Cheese Frosting

How do you tell somebody ?

This is the best carrot cake without telling somebody it's the best carrot cake .

Hey , everyone .

It's Natasha of Natasha's kitchen dot com .

I'm going to show you how 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 preheated .

So let's get started .

Set the oven to 350 F with the rack in the center .

Then butter 29 inch cake pans .

You 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 gonna start with making the cake batter .

Once you have all of your ingredients measured out , this cake really 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 .

Also add the spices which are cinnamon nutmeg , all spice and ground cloves .

The cloves are optional but nice whisk that together until it's well combined .

Breaking up any clumps of brown sugar .

Now , in a second large mixing bowl , we're gonna combine the wet ingredients , start with some light olive oil and you can substitute that .

See the recipe post for substitution ideas also add some apple sauce and apple sauce , adds moisture and natural sweetness , then add your eggs whisk those together until they're well combined .

Now we're gonna add the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients .

I like using a spatula for this .

That way I can scrape the bowl and get every drop in there .

Then we're gonna 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 14 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 grating , 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 .

Also add your chopped pecans .

And again , if there's somebody that 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 pans should feel heavy , but they do bake up beautifully .

Transfer those to your fully preheated oven and bake on the center rack for about 30 to 35 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 15 to 20 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 carrot .

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 1.5 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 , beat those together until they're well combined , scraping down the bowl as needed .

Now beat in salt and vanilla extract .

Uh 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 add 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 2 to 3 minutes or until it's whipped thick and spread , you'll need to scrape down the bowl a couple of times to make sure it's all really 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 .

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 gonna 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 and give it a fun rustic look .

And 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 and you can do the same and really make it your own 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 gonna 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 .

Also , whenever there's nuts in the cake , I like to let people know just in case there's 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 .

Right .

Clearly .

I am not a trained cake decorator , self taught , but that's ok .

It doesn't have to be perfect .

I actually like when a carrot cake looks a little bit rustic .

It's nice , right ?

And really 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 .

OK ?

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 gonna pop this in the fridge for a little bit and then we're gonna dig right in because oh I cannot wait .

I love this cake .

I'll be right back .

All right .

It is not fully chilled yet .

But who can wait for that ?

I want some cake and I'm gonna dig right into this because we need to do a taste test .

Am I right ?

Mhm OK .

Here we go .

This is one amazing cake .

All right , here we go .

No , I I got to let you guys look at this .

Look at the textures .

Here .

My mouth is watering just looking at this so good .

OK .

Here we go .

Plate that up .

Oh The anticipation is real .

OK .

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 .

It can't not be moist .

Here we go .

Oh wow .

I mean it's not just the carrot cake , it's the frosting and the combination of the two , it's not overly sweet .

Like grocery store .

Carrot cakes tend to be kind of like yucky sweet .

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 use for our popular red velvet cake .

We also made carrot cake cupcakes out of this , which if you haven't tried those already , it's similar to this just cupcake form .

It's crunchy from the nuts , chewy from the raisins and you can sense the little bits of carrot in there .

It has so much flavor because it is perfectly spiced .

I'm about to go enjoy this .

Let me know if you guys spotted Sharky in the video and where you saw him also , if you haven't already heard , our first cookbook is finally available to order and it has some pretty epic desserts in it .

We'll leave a link in the description where you can order that and we'll see you in the next episode of Natasha's Kitchen .