Are you wondering what to do with all of those carrots you have in your fridge or are you just craving a delicious carrot cake? People usually either love carrot cake of they hate it. I love them. I found out that historians tell us that the origins of carrot cake were likely a type of carrot pudding enjoyed during medieval times. Later sweetening agents were hard to come by in Britain and quite expensive, so as a result, carrots were often used in place of sweeteners.
Most all carrot cake recipes have a core group of ingredients in common, which are flour, sugar, spices (cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, allspice, salt), baking soda/powder, butter or oil, nuts, and of course carrots. But there are folks that put other things into their cake like: pumpkin, coconut, figs, chocolate chips, oranges, zucchini, ginger, beetroot, sweet potatoes, or papaya. If you have a recipe with one of those ingredients in your carrot cake I would love to hear about it. I like my carrot cake basic but would be eager to try something different.
In terms of carrot cake frostings, some people still prefer their carrot cake plain like me, although you will still see a lot of recipes for the traditional cream-cheese frosting. Other carrot cake toppings folks like are Greek yogurt that is lightly sweetened, buttermilk glaze with a zest of lemon, Royal icing, and chocolate icing.
Then there are many variations of things folks do with their recipe, the amount of carrots they put into a carrot cake recipe will affect both the texture and taste of the cake, using pureed carrots as opposed to shredding raw carrots will give your carrot cake a much more moist consistency, use oil instead of butter, use the zest of one orange in the batter for a zippier consistency.
I like my basic carrot cake recipe and I can tell you that I found this great recipe called Laurie’s Amazing Carrot Cake on A Bountiful Kitchen. That recipe was made for a wedding cake so not only did I split it the recipe in half but I also made it with walnuts and golden raisins, and it turned out amazing. Her secret to a moist, but not too greasy carrot cake is buttermilk and lots of carrots. I can tell you it was moist. I made this cake as a bunt cake but I am sure you can make it in any pan you wish.
I am not a huge fan of frosting and usually like my carrot cakes plain but I wanted to try a new frosting, so I made a Cream Cheese Frosting from Simply Recipes and added coconut in it. It was one of the variations to the recipe. I only put a thin layer of frosting on the cake but it was good, I am sure you can add as must frosting as you wish.
Enjoy!
Carrot Cake
Adapted from: A Bountiful Kitchen
Ingredients
1 ¾ cups sugar
1/2 cup oil
3/4 cups buttermilk
4 eggs
½ tbsp salt
2 tsp soda
2 tsp cinnamon
¾ tsp ground cloves
3 cups grated carrots (4 medium carrots)
1 cup walnuts
2 ¼ cups flour
1 cup raisinsBeat the eggs, oil and buttermilk together in a large bowl. Grind the pecans and raisins in a food processor with a metal blade. Pulse until chopped into very small pieces. Add all of the dry ingredients, including the nuts and raisins to the wet ingredients. Mix until all ingredients are incorporated. Pour into greased and floured bunt pan, only fill pan 3/4 full. Bake at 325 F degrees for about 50 minutes. Test with toothpick to see if done before removing from oven.
Cream Cheese Frosting
Adapted from: Simply Recipes
Ingredients
1/2 cup of butter (1 stick), room temperature
8 oz of Philly cream cheese (1 package), cold
2-3 cups of powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla extractWith an electric mixer, mix the butter and cream cheese together, about 3 minutes on medium speed until very smooth. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl to ensure even mixing. Add the vanilla extract and mix. Slowly add the powdered sugar. Keep adding until you get to desired sweetness and thickness. Either spread on with a blunt knife or spatula, or spoon into a piping bag to decorate your cake or cupcake.
Variations:
Adding a teaspoon of Chinese Five Spice is always great for exotic chocolate cakes.
Adding freshly ground ginger helps spice up a carrot cake.
Freshly ground chai spice or even the contents of a bag of earl grey tea are heady and aromatic.
The scrapings from a vanilla bean can be very sweet and heavenly for red velvet or dark chocolate cakes.
Freshly grated or dried, flaked coconut mixed in makes it perfect for a coconut cake.
MaryMoh says
April 28, 2010 at 7:52 amLooks very moist and delicious. I love the cheese frosting with it. I can even have this for lunch 😛
Delishhh replied: — April 29th, 2010 @ 7:47 pm
I know what you mean MaryMoh. I could have this for lunch too. Nice photo’s of the mountains on your site.
XiaoYen says
April 28, 2010 at 10:46 amI bought a carrot cake mix and it turned out horrible! I had the best carrot cake from a party not too long ago and I hope to find a recipe that comes close to what I had or better. I’ll definitely give this a try.
Delishhh replied: — April 29th, 2010 @ 7:48 pm
XiaoYen, yes please try it out and let me know. To me this is a fabulous recipe. Do you have a blog? I didn’t see a link. Please share with me.
Wendy (The Local Cook) says
April 29, 2010 at 8:25 amI loooove carrot cake and cream cheese frosting! What a great idea to add coconut to the frosting.
Delishhh replied: — April 29th, 2010 @ 7:49 pm
Wendy, thanks for coming by, what an honor. Please come again soon.
jairo says
April 29, 2010 at 1:37 pmi’m gonna try that cake it looks damn good
Delishhh replied: — April 29th, 2010 @ 7:50 pm
Jairo, Yes try it and let me know how it turns out.
Cindy Haskin-Popp says
May 1, 2010 at 5:58 pmGreat tip about the buttermilk for a moist cake. I didn’t know that. I can’t wait to make the cream cheese frosting with the coconut. That sounds amazing!
Delishhh replied: — May 4th, 2010 @ 7:15 pm
Cindy, when you make it please come back here and tell me about it!
pierre says
May 2, 2010 at 12:20 amhi delishhh love this carrot cake recipe thanks for the sharing
Delishhh replied: — May 4th, 2010 @ 7:22 pm
Pierre, my french friend. Thanks for coming back. Have any good recipes for me to try out?
Lydia Owen says
September 30, 2010 at 9:57 ami love to eat cakes and bake them too that is why i am always on the lookout for cake recipes:’`
Detox Diet · says
November 7, 2010 at 10:13 amthe cake recipes on the internet are all very delicious and i want to try and bake all of them ”
soap tempeste d'amore says
July 25, 2013 at 4:40 amGreat info. Lucky me I came across your site by accident (stumbleupon).
I have book-marked it for later!
Jo says
April 3, 2015 at 4:33 pmThis recipe w/buttermilk looks great, but I love carrot cake w/crushed pineapple. What will happen if I reduce the grated carrots to 3(2??) & add 8 oz can pineapple, drained?
Tnx