Classic Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting
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Carrot cake has always held a special place in my heart. (It has also been known to hold a special place on my belly over the years, but that’s another story.)
When playing the “If You Were on Death Row and Had to Choose Your Last Meal, What Would It Be?” game, carrot cake would make the cut. (Carrot cake or a deep, rich pecan pie. Or something caramelly and chocolatey, oozing together. Sorry- carried away there for a sec.)The 4 Keys to a Kick-Ass Carrot Cake:
1. The Frosting. And everyone knows it. Layer it, slather it on the top, and assume that if for some strange reason someone isn’t all about the icing, they can scrape some off.
2. The Moisture. A good carrot cake should be a dense yet yielding body of wonder. Not dense like fruitcake, and not fluffy like buttermilk birthday cakes.
3. The Inclusions. So not everyone likes nuts, or raisins, or pineapple, or coconut~ and you can just edit accordingly if you know that Nellie won’t touch nuts, for example. But the whole cake is greater than the sum of its parts… so try not to mess with a good thing.
4. The Frosting. It really does matter.Anyhoo, this recipe is adapted from my Dad’s lovely secretary, Colleen, who used to make a pan of it for either his birthday or mine every year up until his retirement. She was kind enough to type the recipe out for me one day, and even put “Jodi’s Carrot Cake” at the top of the page back in 1998. What a woman.
Carrot Cake:
2 cups sugar
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup vegetable oil
4 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 cups shredded carrots
1 cup chopped toasted walnuts + 1 additional cup for optional garnish
1 cup coconut (Angel Flake is preferred) + 1 additional cup for optional garnish
1 8-ounce can crushed pineapple, drained 75% of juice
2/3 cup raisins
1 orange (optional, for garnish)
ingredients for Cream Cheese Frosting (below)- Preheat oven to 325 degrees, and grease either two round 9″ cake pans or one 9″ x 14″ pan.
- Mix first six dry ingredients (sugar through salt) together in a medium bowl and set aside.
- In a medium bowl, beat the oil, eggs and vanilla together on medium speed, then combine with dry ingredients.
- Stir in carrots, walnuts, coconut, pineapple (with remaining 25% of juice from can), and raisins.
- Pour batter into prepared pan(s) and bake for 45 minutes, checking after 35 minutes (you want a few moist crumbs to stick to the cake tester). You don’t want to overbake this cake! Rest in pans for 5 minutes then turn out on a cooling rack to cool before frosting (see recipe below).
- Place one layer of cake on a frosting turntable or your presentation plate, and spread 1/3 of frosting on layer. Carefully place second layer on top of first, and spread remaining frosting across top and sides of cake. If you choose to add garnishes (see Tips below), add before frosting ‘sets’. Store in fridge but serve at room temperature for best flavor.
Cream Cheese Frosting (with dairy, of course… see below for dairy-free version):1 8-ounce block of softened cream cheese (1 cup)
1/2 cup softened butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
3/4 teaspoon orange zest (optional)
3 1/2 cups confectioners’ sugar (more or less, depending on how you prefer the consistency)- Mix first four ingredients well.
- Add confectioners’ sugar, one cup at a time, beating until smooth (scraping sides of bowl after each addition of sugar); add sugar until you have reached your desired consistency.
TIPS:
- Garnish this cake! (If you want to. If you don’t, it’ll still be a thing of beauty in its cream-cheese-covered glory.)
- Dress Up #1: Sprinkle 1 cup of toasted walnuts that have been pulsed in a food processor into small bits & crumbs onto the top &/or sides of the cake…
- Dress Up #2: Toast the extra cup of coconut in the oven for 8 minutes or so (while cake is actually baking). Check the coconut often and stir it around so it doesn’t burn, which is something it likes to do all of a sudden. Really- one minute it’s looking slightly golden, and the next it’s angry and burned and you don’t have any coconut left to start all over. Sprinkle on top &/or sides of cake…
- Dress Up #3: make candied orange zest to sprinkle on top: in a small saucepan, bring 1/2 cup of both water and sugar to a boil, and stir to dissolve sugar. Add the zest of an orange (or use a vegetable peeler to peel the orange and slice into very thin pieces~ I always find this hard since the oranges are often too soft to peel, or my peeler is too dull?), and add it to the saucepan. Simmer (so turn the heat down to medium-low) for 8 minutes, and then drain and dry with a paper towel before sprinkling a tablespoon of sugar over zest. You can de-clump the zest when it’s dried… just sprinkle over top &/or sides of cake…
- Shredding the carrots can be a bit of a bear. This time around I tried the shredding blade in my food processor, and I am forever sold… so if you have one of these, shred happily away. If not, elbow grease makes cakes taste good :).
- Toasting the walnuts. Really? I wholeheartedly recommend this, as I think it makes a big difference in the taste. (Absolutely toast the walnuts if you are using as a garnish.)
- Cutting comment: it will be easier to cut the cake when it’s chilled, to prevent “frosting smoosh”…
- This cake ages gracefully: store it in the fridge (serve at room temperature, though) and appreciate the flavor as it seems to intensify after the first day.
- Frosting freezing tip: if you make the recipe above and plan to use it on a 9″ x 13″ pan, you might end up with too much- so go ahead and freeze it for up to a month in a ziploc bag. (You can defrost in the microwave for about 20 seconds and use when the urge strikes- like if you want to spread it on a piece of Cinnamon Raisin Swirl toast??)
- Dairy-Free Icing Option #1: it’s not cream-cheesy, but it’s still yummy… it’s a glaze that will stiffen a bit but still stay soft on the inside. Simply stir together 3 cups of confectioners’ sugar with 2 tablespoons of almond milk (or soy), and 2 tablespoons of orange juice. (Stir in the orange zest as per recipe above if you wish.) Then add the right bits of liquid and sugar to create the right consistency- a thick honey look and feel is what you’re looking for. Spread 1/3 of it onto the bottom layer, and then pour/spread over the top and sides of the cake, working quickly to add any garnishes so they stick before the icing hardens. Tip: spread the icing on the cake when it is still a tiny bit warm… it will help the icing to flow for you when pouring it on.
- Not-As-Good-Dairy-Free Frosting Option #2: simply swap the butter and cream cheese out with dairy-free margarine and dairy-free cream cheese, and add an additional 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla… although I have to admit that I am not a huge fan of the taste. If you’re stubborn and have to have a “cream cheese” frosting, then this one will do.
- Healthier choice? I’d suggest that you skip the frosting and simply sprinkle confectioners’ sugar over the top of the cake right before serving, but that would be blasphemous. (See Keys to a Kick-Ass Carrot Cake #1 and 4 above.)
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2 Responses and Counting...
I just tried your classic carrot cake with cream cheese frosting and it is totally AWESOME! I’ve been a carrot cake lover all my life but your recipe truly sets a new standard. Get to the patent office.
So glad you like- and I hope you found it easy to make, too!