Carrot Cake! With a hint of cinnamon, soft crunch from nuts, ultra moist crumb and piled high with the fluffiest ever cream cheese frosting, this has the perfect texture and flavour. Easy and foolproof, absolutely to-die for!
Carrot Cake
This Carrot Cake is from a reader, the lovely Dorothy of Tennessee in the States, a long-time reader of RecipeTin Eats. She promised it was dead easy, foolproof, ultra moist with a heavenly flavour.
One bite was all it took for me to ditch the recipe I’d been using all my life up until that moment. This was The One. Hands down the best Carrot Cake I have ever had in my life!
I love it so much, in fact, that I’ve also just published a cupcake version too!
Why you’ll love this Carrot Cake recipe
The cake itself is not too sweet, with less sugar than most recipes;
The cake is moist, but not doughy or “mud-cake” like;
The subtle crunch from pecans and coconut in the cake. The textural contrast with the crumb is really terrific; and
There is plenty of frosting!!
What you need for Carrot Cake
Here’s what you need for this Carrot Cake. The “secret ingredients” in this are:
Crushed pineapple (canned) – this adds to the moistness of the crumb, as well as sweetness and flavour. We’re going to use all of the pineapple and some of the juice; and
Coconut and walnuts (or pecans) – they add a subtle soft crunch which provides great textural contrast in this cake that has a very soft crumb.
No butter! Did you know – oil makes cakes moist and butter adds flavour. In this recipe, we don’t need butter because there’s all sorts of flavour from the other ingredients so we just use oil.
How to make Carrot Cake
Just use a standard box grater to grate the carrot. Then it’s as simple as mixing the Dry ingredients, mixing the Wet, then mixing them together.
I’ve made a 2 layer cake here but you could also make one rectangle single layer cake.
Cream Cheese Frosting for Carrot Cake
There’s just no question – fluffy cream cheese frosting is the BEST frosting for Carrot Cake! Here’s what you need:
Cream cheese – use BLOCK, not the spreadable cream cheese in tubs (too soft);
Softened butter – softened but not super soft / borderline melting;
Icing sugar aka powdered sugar – 🇦🇺use soft icing sugar, NOT pure icing sugar (which is used for things like royal icing ie sets hard); and
Vanilla.
How to make cream cheese frosting
There’s no secret trick to making fluffy cream cheese frosting. Just beat, beat, beat until fluffy! It will take a good 3 to 5 minutes to make the frosting super fluffy.
TIP for even layers (without trimming)
No cake comes out of the oven with a perfectly level surface.
But rather than bothering to cut the top to make it level, just flip the cake upside down before frosting.
You’ll still get a slight dome in the middle with this cake but it’s less pronounced than if you frosted it without turning it upside down.
And so I present to you, Dorothy’s Carrot Cake, with 2 layers, though it’s marvellous as a single layer sheet pan rectangle cake – goes further and there’s a thicker layer of frosting on the surface.
Thank you Dorothy, for sharing your wonderful recipe with us!!! I’m so honoured! – Nagi x
Watch how to make it
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Carrot Cake (Easy and ultra moist!)
Ingredients
- 440g / 20 oz can crushed pineapple , drained but RESERVE juice (Note 1)
- 1/4 cup (65 ml) reserved canned pineapple juice (from canned pineapple above)
Wet Ingredients
- 3/4 cup (185 ml) milk , at room temperature (full or low fat)
- 1 tsp white vinegar (or lemon juice or other clear vinegar, (Note 2)
- 3 eggs (55g/2oz each)
- 1 1/2 cups (265g) brown sugar (loosely packed)
- 1/2 cup (125 ml) vegetable oil (or canola)
Dry Ingredients
- 2 cups (300g) flour , plain / all purpose
- 2 tsp baking soda (aka bi carb soda, Note 3) (NOT BAKING POWDER)
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 2 tsp cinnamon powder
Stir Ins
- 2 cups grated carrot , about 2 carrots, peeled (Note 4)
- 1/4 cup coconut , shredded or desiccated (plain / unsweetened)
- 1/2 cup walnuts or pecans , roughly chopped
Frosting
- 180g / 6oz cream cheese , at room temperature (Note 5)
- 225g / 1 cup unsalted butter , softened
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 4 cups (480g) icing sugar / powdered sugar , sifted if clumpy (Note 6)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 180°C/350°F (all oven types). Grease and line two 20-22.5 cm/8 – 9" round pans OR a 9 x 13" / 22 x 33cm pan with baking/parchment paper. (Note 7)
- Drain crushed pineapple well, reserving the juice. Measure out 1/4 cup of pineapple juice.
- Whisk Dry ingredients in a large bowl.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together the milk, vinegar, eggs, sugar, oil and the 1/4 cup pinepple juice from Step 2.
- Stir in carrot, crushed pineapple, coconut and pecans into the Wet ingredients bowl.
- Pour Wet into Dry ingredients, stir until flour is incorporated.
- Pour into prepared pan(s). Bake round cakes for 35 minutes, rectangle cake for 40 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean and the cake is golden on top.
- Rest for 10 minutes in the pan before turning out onto a cooling rack. Frost once completely cool.
Cream Cheese Frosting
- Beat together cream cheese, butter and vanilla until smooth. Then beat in the icing sugar in 2 batches until it is well incorporated and the frosting is fluffy – about 3 minutes on speed 7 stand mixer.
- Flip one cake upside down on serving platter (for flat surface). Spread with 1/3 frosting. Place 2nd cake upside down on frosting. Frost top and sides with remaining frosting.
Storage
- If cooler than 25°C/77°C and not humid, ok to keep cake in airtight container not in fridge. If very humid OR warmer than 25°C/77°C, store in fridge (Note 8).
Recipe Notes:
Nutrition Information:
Originally published April 2016. Updated with new photos, and new recipe video added!
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Life of Dozer
Project Manager Dozer on duty for the video shoot! Quality Assurance is his speciality 😂
And here he is from when I originally published this Carrot Cake – no surprises, Dozer lurking under the shoot table! I’m not going to lie to you. He scored a big hunk of carrot cake. His bottom can afford it. Mine can’t.
I’ve recently made this cake twice. Once as a dairy free cake, using oat milk instead of milk. Once following the regular recipe. Both versions are terrific. I did make some changes to the cream cheese frosting, I used the whole package of cream cheese (250g), 1C unsalted butter, 1t vanilla, 3C sifted icing sugar and 60g melted white choc. The white chocolate gives the frosting a bit more stability I find. On the dairy free cake I used a frosting made with coconut cream, vegan margarine and icing sugar. It was tasty but a bit runny. Will certainly make again!
This cake has been repeatedly delicious. I had to make it in a hurry recently and didn’t have a tin of pineapple. I substituted a grated apple, a banana and orange juice to the equivalent of the pineapple juice. It was equally delish! I find 2/3 of the icing recipe works for my cake tins. Thank you Nagi 🙌
I baked this cake using rectangle tin single layer as recipe note. I made icing from different recipe. Because I wanted to have not too soft texture. Single layer cake was still good thickness and we cut many pieces. I keep this cake recipe especially if I need to feed many people.
This is the best carrot cake I have ever made! I could only find canned pineapple slices, so after draining I cut up and mashed the slices and drained again.
The frosting goes along way if only covering the top.
Thank you Nagi 🙂
I made this for easter and it went down a treat! I was a bit nervous about assembling it because I haven’t done a multilayer cake before and expected it to be delicate and fiddly, but the cake held together really well and was easy to move around with just my hands without cracking or crumbling. Though, even with a good fingers width of icing in between he layers and a good thick coating of it on the top and around the sides, I still had a half cup of icing left over, save to say my niblings, who were on bowl cleaning duty, all got a bit silly! Would happily make this one again, though I may make less icing.
I should have read the notes…I didn’t. I made this in a single round tin and while it was not light and fluffy it was moist and tasty and everyone at work said it was the best ever carrot cake they had tried. Now I get asked to make it for everyone’s birthday. I kept it single layer and now half the amount of icing to cover just top and sides. So so good!
How silly am I! While making this cake today I accidentally found out the kettle empty boxes at the side of the ingredients listed enable a little tick when tapped to show the ingredient has been added. This is fantastic! What a great help.
Hi. Thinking of this cake for an Easter desert. I am in the uk.Can anybody help with the approx weight in g or oz of carrots, coconut and walnuts, please. The other ingredients are given in ethic.
Thank you.
My daughter is anaphylactic to nuts, can I just omit them?
Thank you
Baked this carrot cake couple of times. Delicious 😋🤤 Baking this again this week for a friend who loves carrot cake. It’s her birthday. I’m thinking to use ermine frosting made with cream cheese. Thanks Nagi for the recipe. We’re so sorry about Dozer.
I made this recently for a family birthday. Everyone loved it from 2 year old to 76 year old. And it was so moist, It has been added to the make again list
I doubled the recipe and made two. One for us and one to take to my son. Absolutely beautiful carrot cake!!! So moist and just delicious. Thank you again Nagi for another hit!!!
So incredibly delicious!! Even using gluten free flour it was amazing. Thank you for the bets recipes
This recipe is amazing!! I have adapted it as a gluten free version by substituting King Arthur’s Measure for Measure. Perfect. It is nice to offer a yummy dessert that gluten and gluten free both can enjoy.
Beautiful cake. Just a shame that the icing is sooooo runny. I’ve made many cream cheese icings before and this one seems to have the ratios wrong. Great taste but the icing needs to be set again in the fridge prior to stacking the cakes.
A delicious result! Did the rectangular version in a ceramic baking dish and it turned out a treat. I always baulk at the sugar in the frosting but made it anyway – fabulous (glad I read the note of using soft, not pure, icing sugar, nearly blundered). Every one of the recipes I’ve made from your site has been a success. Thank you for them all.
No other carrot cake like it! I made a double 22cmx30cm for a birthday celebration and what a great success! Frosting in the middle and totally covered the top and sides!
Absolutely delicious!🌟
Amazing carrot cake, only 4 stars because using a 440g tin of pineapple just to get a 1/4 cup of juice and not use the rest of the 430g of actual pineapple, is a massive waste. There must be a better way or a different product that wastes less.
Um, you DO use the pineapple – checkout step 5 and note 1
Hey, Roo, you need to go through the recipe again. You absolutely DO use the tin of crushed pineapple! Nagi deserves her extra star!!!
I made this and took it to work, all my colleagues thought it was shop bought.
It turned out Amazing.
Thank you for the recipe.
Outstanding cake, beautiful instructions. My daughter is cooking the cream cheese frosted Dorothy Carrot ( sounds very Beatrix Potter) cake again, for her birthday cake. I’m hoping there might be a bit left for her grandparents. Everyone loves it.