This truly is the Best Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting. The cake is supremely tender, moist, and bursting with great carrot cake flavor. The frosting is creamy, smooth, and decadent.
Moist Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting
It’s finally officially spring. Though the weather can be somewhat of a finicky unknown during spring in this neck of the woods, nobody’s complaining. There might be an April snowstorm (no jinx, please) and puddles of mud, but it’s definitely on the upswing.
Spring calls for the appearance of Lemon Poppy Seed Bread and carrot cake, despite the funny fact that lemons reach peak harvest in winter and carrots are more of a summer farmer’s market staple. Thankfully, fresh carrots are available year round for most of us, and magical carrot cake can happen whenever the craving hits.
And when the carrot cake craving hits, there’s none better than this extraordinarily moist carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. It’s a family & friends’ favorite recipe which has ruined all other carrot cakes for us…fair warning, it may do the same for you.
The perfect texture and balance of flavors
This genuinely is the best carrot cake we’ve ever sunk our sweet teeth into, and that includes many restaurant carrot cake tastings. Here’s why:
- The combination of baking soda and baking powder gives this cake an extra tender crumb.
- This cake doesn’t skimp on the spices; your taste buds will appreciate the generous combination of cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and ginger.
- Brown sugar is combined with granulated sugar for a boost in moisture and depth of flavor.
- Four large eggs go into the batter, binding the ingredients and providing structure
- The cake utilizes oil to give it that supremely moist texture – we often use light olive oil, which does not impart any olive-ish flavors to the cake. Feel free to use vegetable or canola oil.
- An entire pound of fresh carrots offer plenty of carrot cake respect. The cake won’t taste like a big carrot, we promise.
- Whether you grate your fresh carrots using large vs. small holes of your box grater is your choice. If you prefer the carrots to “melt” into the cake more, grate them finer.
- Crushed pineapple is a legit moisture-booster in this cake. You’ll squeeze out all the excess juice from pineapple to ensure correct liquid to flour ratio.
- If you’re a raisin fan, feel free to drop in 1/2 cup of raisins.
Cream Cheese Frosting
This carrot cake needs nothing else but a generous slathering of velvety cream cheese frosting. Feel free to embellish it to your heart’s content with carrot-shaped candies or orange and green swirls on top if you’d like.
Just know that the cream cheese frosting is really all you need:
- It tastes like smooth, creamy soft cheesecake layers in between moist carrot cake layers.
- Do use regular, whole cream cheese.
- Salted butter provides smooth, rich, salty buttery goodness to the frosting.
- A bit of sour cream give the frosting a tangy boost, helping to offset the sweetness.
- Pure vanilla extract brings this cream cheese frosting home.
All the flavors of the cake swing and jive so well together.
Make the entire cake in advance
You’ll love the fact that this entire carrot cake with cream cheese frosting is a make-ahead deal. You can frost and assemble the entire cake and keep it chilled up to a day or two in advance. Just be sure to keep it covered and not exposed in the fridge.
This handy cake container/carrier is super useful for storing cakes or bringing them to a friend’s house.
We love this cake so much, it shows up on birthdays and holidays often. We even have this simplified version for any day carrot cake cravings come calling.
Best Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting
- Prep Time: 20 min
- Cook Time: 35
- Total Time: 55 minutes
- Yield: 12 1x
- Diet: Vegetarian
Description
This is truly the very Best Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting we’ve ever had the pleasure of sinking our sweet teeth into! The cake layers are super moist, tender, soft, and delicious. The cream cheese frosting is smooth and velvety, like a bit of cheesecake heaven. *This cake can be made a day ahead, and actually tastes better the next day!
Ingredients
For the Cake
- 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
- 1 1/4 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 3 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
- 1/4 tsp ground cloves
- 1/2 tsp ground ginger
- 1/2 tsp table salt
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 cup light brown sugar, packed
- 4 large eggs, room temp
- 1 1/2 cups vegetable or olive oil
- 1 lb carrots, peeled and grated (I did half using large holes of box grater and half small holes)
- 1/2 cup crushed pineapple, liquid drained and squeezed out of the fruit
For Cream Cheese Frosting
- 12 oz regular cream cheese, softened
- 6 TB salted butter, softened
- 4 tsp regular sour cream
- 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 3 cups confectioner’s (powder) sugar
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350F with rack on lower middle position. Line 2 (9 in) round cake pans with parchment paper on bottom. Grease parchment paper and sides of pan. Set aside.
- Make the Cake: In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, ginger, and salt. Set aside.
- In a stand mixer fitted with paddle attachment, beat both sugars with eggs on medium high until combined, 45 sec. Reduce to medium speed and add oil gradually. Increase to high speed and mix until light in color, 1 min.
- Remove bowl and using a rubber spatula, fold in the carrots and pineapple. Gently fold in dry ingredient mixture just until no flour streaks remain; do not over mix.
- Scrape batter, divided evenly, into prepared cake pans. Smooth top to release air bubbles. Bake until toothpick inserted in center comes out with a few tender crumbs attached, 30-35 minutes.
- Remove pans and cool cakes completely in pans on a wire rack (at least several hours.)
- Meanwhile, Make the Frosting. In stand mixer fitted with whisk attachment, mix the softened cream cheese, butter, sour cream, and vanilla at medium high speed until combined, 30 seconds, scraping down as needed. Add confectioners’ sugar and mix until very fluffy, 1 minute. Keep chilled until ready to use.
- Be sure cakes are completely cooled. Run thin knife around edge of cakes to loosen and invert one round cake onto serving platter. Tap back of pan to remove cake and gently peel off parchment paper. Spread half of the cream cheese frosting on top of cake. Repeat with second layer of cake, placing it gently over the top of frosting. Spread remaining frosting on top, and garnish however you like, but no garnish necessary. Cake may be covered and chilled 1 day ahead.
Notes
Cake can be fully assembled a day or two in advance. Keep covered and chilled until ready to serve. This cake container/carrier is helpful for storing or transporting.
Optional: you can add 1/2 cup raisins if you like. Top with toasted chopped pecans or walnuts if desired.
Click here if you’d like to make carrot cake cupcakes.
If you enjoyed this recipe, please come back and give it a rating ♡
- Category: dessert
- Method: baking
- Cuisine: American
Keywords: Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting, Layered Carrot Cake, Homemade Carrot Cake
More to Bake and Eat
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2. Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting – This is a super duper easy carrot cake in a pan that doesn’t involve layers but involves lots of moist flavor!
3. Banana Cake with Whipped Cream Frosting. An easy pan cake that is always moist, soft, and perfect for any time of day.
4. Banana Chiffon Cake. This light, spongy, airy cake is moist and tender all the way. So good and addictive, you can almost eat the entire thing all by yourself.
5. Best Ever Angel Food Cake. I never tasted real angel food cake until I tasted this. It blows away any store bought version.
I made this cake today and my family loved it I only added half a cup of shaved coconut and and half a cup of crush pecans, thanks for sharing it with us I will continue making it.
Yay, love to hear it, Ellie! Nice job, so glad your family loved it 🙂 Thanks for coming over and letting us know! Hope you’ll continue finding recipes you enjoy here at COL 🙂
I don’t remember carrot cake having pineapple but it’s been awhile..
This cake was truly moist and delicious, but if the cake is cut into 8 slices, I calculated almost 1100 calories per serving! Next time I might try subbing applesauce for about a cup of the oil, and Neufchâtel for the cream cheese for starters, but I honestly can’t see making it again as written.
Somebody would like me to make this for their wedding cake! Do you have any suggestions for baking 8” and 6” cakes?
Dalynn,how exciting! For an 8″ you might need to increase the bake time a little bit (if the batter reaches up higher than with the 9″)… start testing at the original bake time, and remove when toothpick inserted in center comes out *almost* clean with a few tender crumbs attached. With a 6″ you’ll likely need to shorten the bake time. Start testing maybe 10-15 minutes earlier, again until toothpick comes out with few tender crumbs. Congrats on being the cake baker! 🙂
Just made this for a baby shower. It truly is THE.BEST.CARROT.CAKE.EVER. Everyone at the shower raved. And it was super easy to make as well. Thank you for the recipe!
Can I make this with pineapple juice instead of the chunks?
You can omit the pineapple rather than subbing with juice. If you sub with juice, you’ll be adding liquid to the batter, which will alter your dry to liquid ratio. Hope you truly love this cake as much as we do 🙂
can make cupcakes instead of layer cake using this recipe?
Yes, just alter the cooking time. For small cupcakes 10-15 mins, for bigger cupcakes 12-20 mins (depending on your oven)
Thank you for contributing! I appreciate all the shares and comments on this Parade Post. https://parade.com/995182/nettiemoore/best-carrot-cake-dessert-recipes/
★★★★★
Hi! My oven’s not big enough to fit 2 pans. What do I do with the recipe to make just one pan? Carrot cake’s my favorite and i’d really like to make this. Thank you very much!
You can bake the pans separately, or adjust bake time if you’re baking entire batter in one pan. If you’re halving the recipe to fit one pan, that will work too. 🙂
So good! I don’t always add pineapple because I don’t have it on hand but still delicious! And perfect with cream cheese frosting!
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So happy you liked it! 🙂
Love carrot cake! I don’t usually add pineapple but can’t wait to give this version a try! Thanks for the tip on the box grater!
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You’re welcome, Heather!
This cake looks fabulous! It looks so moist, and I love all the spices you included. Can’t wait to try it!
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Yay, can’t wait for you to taste it!
This carrot cake came out super soft and fluffy. It wasn’t overly sweet which I appreciate. The cream cheese frosting was great too, I can’t have carrot cake without it! SO delicious.
★★★★★
Yay, I’m so happy to hear that, Veronika!
Any thoughts on how long to bake usi g a Bundt pan?
Stephen, try 350F for 50 min to start with. When toothpick inserted in center comes out with a few tender crumbs attached, it’s done 🙂
So moist and delicious as a carrot cake should be. And the cheese frosting is dreamy, I just cannot stop eating it.
★★★★★
So happy you liked it!
Good Morning!
Your cake recipe looks delicious, and I am betting this would go over well with my friends and family! A must-make recipe for sure. Have a wonderful day, and I will come back to let you know how it turns out.
★★★★★
Hope you all love it!
Oh my sweet heavens LOOK AT THIS CAKE!!! It looks absolutely perfect! And those carrots pieces… I’m in love! Seriously, this is a showstopper for sure! Thank you so much for sharing!!!
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You’re welcome, Lori!
I can’t think of a more perfect recipe to bring for an Easter dessert! LOVE the cream cheese frosting…perfect way to compliment this!
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Thanks, Leslie!
I love trying out new carrot cake recipes and I can’t wait to try yours! It looks delicious, you can tell how soft and moist is already from the pictures.
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Thanks, Eva!
Carrot Cake is my most favorite cake! It’s moist, flavorful, with silky cream cheese frosting! Definitely making it for Easter!
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Excited for you to taste this!
I actually made carrot cupcakes yesterday and they were amazing, but I definitely need to try out this recipe next time! I can’t wait to give these a go, thank you for sharing this recipe!
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You’re welcome, Ramona!
This looks Incredibly delicious. I have to make this soon for my family!
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Hope you all love it!