This carrot cake is moist and full of cinnamon flavor. The cream cheese buttercream creates the perfect balance of savory and sweet. The cake contains a slight trace of crushed walnuts and all the right spices to bring a smile to your face!
This carrot cake with a cream cheese frosting is perfect for any occasion.
Carrot cake is the ultimate classic. This carrot cake recipe was created to honor a few love ones. A true masterpiece is timeless and effortless. That’s exactly what this recipe represents an easy approach with a minimum use of nuts. This carrot cake is light and the perfect treat to serve anytime.
The Cake
This cake recipe was inspired by Bon Appetit and Baking a Moment. Moist cakes are always the adjective. This recipe uses grapeseed oil, instead of butter. That one change eliminates ingredients needed at room temperature. When dealing with picky eaters I always try to remove extra ingredients. This recipe uses many spices and only a handful of nuts.
The love for simplicity and the desire of sugar and spice and everything nice, is why this amazing cake needs to be created. This cake is 3 tier creating a beautiful display. This carrot cake is a 6 inch layered cake. But, this recipe can easily be used for two 8 or 9 inch cake pans.
The Ingredients
Carrot cake is all about carrots, so a significant amount of carrots are used. I would recommend using between 1/2-3/4 lb. of fresh carrots. Before, grating the carrots peel off the first layer of unwanted skin and cut off the stem. Then grate away, I like to use the traditional grater to get a quick workout. Once grated, it’s important to drain out the extra moisture in the carrots. Just simply, take a handful at a time in between your hands and squeeze as if clapping with excitement. This step will leave your hands rather orange/red. But, removal of the extra moisture makes it worth the trouble.
Majority of the nuts used were for decoration of the cake. A couple of handfuls of walnuts and pecans were finely chopped. Then placed on the outside of the cake. The inside of the cake had a few tablespoons of finely chopped walnuts. For this recipe, both granulated sugar and dark brown sugar are used. Both sugars cut down the savory taste from the spices. Also, brown sugar adds a more rich flavor and changes the color of the cake to a more darker brown.
The spices used were cinnamon, fresh grated nutmeg, and a pinch of ground clove. The smell of these three spices will compliment the carrot cake and make you wish it was Fall.
The cream cheese frosting is what makes a carrot cake pop. It’s light, its creamy, its tangy, and its sweet. This frosting could be made with so many different types of cakes or cupcakes. Such as this vanilla cupcake recipe or this classic yellow birthday cake.
Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Buttercream
Ingredients
- 1 3/4 cups Cake Flour
- 1 teaspoon Baking Soda
- 1 teaspoon Kosher Salt
- 1 1/2 teaspoon Baking Powder
- 1/2 teaspoon Freshly grated nutmeg
- 2 teaspoons Cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon Ground cloves
- 1 1/3 cup Grapeseed Oil
- 1 cup Dark brown sugar
- 3/4 cup Granulated sugar
- 3 Large eggs
- 2 cups Grated finely carrots
- 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
- 1 handful Finely chopped walnuts
For the Cream Cheese Buttercream:
- 8 ounces Cream cheese, room temperature
- 1/2 cup Butter, room temperature
- 4 cups Powdered sugar, sifted
- 1 pinch of kosher salt
- 1 teaspoon Vanilla extract
Instructions
To make the Carrot Cake Layers:
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly coat three 6"-diameter cake pans with nonstick spray. Line the bottom of the pans with round-cutout parchment paper.
- Whisk cake flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, ground gloves, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a medium size bowl.
- Grate the carrots and remove access liquid by squeezing the carrots out.
- Using an electric mixer on high speed, beat the brown sugar, vanilla extract, granulated sugar, and eggs until a pale and thick consistency is noticed. Roughly 3 minutes.
- Reduce the electric mixer to a low-medium speed and slowly add in the grapeseed oil.
- Slowly start to add the dry ingredients into the electric mixer. Waiting until the flour is completely incorporated before adding another addition of dry ingredients.
- Remove cake batter from mixer and fold in the grated carrots and choppe walnuts.
- Scrape the batter into prepared cake pans evenly. Bake for 30-40 minutes. Rotate the pans halfway through baking using a toothpick to check for a full bake. When the toothpick is removed from the center of the pan clean remove the cake from the oven.
- Transfer pans to a cooling rack and let the cakes cool for 10 minutes. Invert the cake onto the cooling rack and remove the parchment paper. Allows the cake to completely cool before adding frosting and assembling.
To make the cream cheese buttercream:
- Add the butter and cream cheese to the electric mixer with the paddle attachment.
- Whip for a few minutes on medium-high speed until silk smooth.
- Scrape the sides of the bowl. In small batches add the powdered sugar. Mix on low speed.
- Once all combined, turn the mixer to medium-high speed and whip the buttercream until fluffy. (about 3-4 minutes)