February 25, 2021

My Favourite Carrot Cake Recipe

This is my all-time favourite carrot cake recipe. It is moist, fuss-free and flavourful. A carrot cake fit for every season. And boy, do not even get me started on the cream cheese glaze… I could eat that stuff straight from the bowl. As a bonus, it packs all of those carrots, so you also get veggie plus points while eating cake! Isn’t that just amazing?

Hey there! How were your holidays? 🙂 It was peaceful and relaxing on this side of the screen. January was ultra long like always but I enjoyed some downtime and got my year off to a good start by doing some self-development workshops. I hope you had a relaxing time as well and did something that makes you happy. For me, that’s baking. In the mean time, I happily tried out several new recipes which I am excited to share. Let’s start with my Favourite Carrot Cake that I made for our Christmas dinner!

Mari Bakes Carrot Cake

This Carrot Cake has been my party staple for years. It fits Christmas, Easter, weddings, birthdays, you name it. Carrots just seem to always be in season. Also, my friends really demanded the recipe after eating this cake. Well guys, here you go! It is inspired by an Estonian recipe by Linnar Viik.

Besides, this Carrot Cake is truly easy to make. The only effort is grating the carrots but that can easily be done with a kitchen machine. Other than that, you mix dry and wet ingredients, mix these two together and bake. Voilà! Obviously, any good carrot cake also needs that tasty thicc cream cheese layer and this cake delivers.

Usually, all my effort goes on perfecting the flavour of my bakes but this time I also had a lot of fun decorating the cake. I saw this woodlands cake scene in Pinterest and really wanted to recreate it. However, we were also making gingerbread for Christmas and long story short, a mysterious Baby Yoda landed in the forest to marvel at the deer.

Mari Bakes Carrot Cake

But the flavour! It is moist, lightly spiced and the lemony cream cheese layer complements the carrot cake so nicely. The best compliment I got for this cake was from my brother-in-law who said that he only eats cake at parties to be polite but this time, he wanted to finish the cake all by himself. I guess you need to try my Favourite Carrot Cake for yourself!

My Favourite Carrot Cake

This Carrot Cake has been my party staple for years. Flavourful, easy and moist with an extra of that thick slather of citrusy cream cheese glaze. You can try it with either lemon or orange, with or without nuts. Nevertheless, always a tasty result!

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Prep Time 15

Cook Time 1

Total Time 1 15

Course Dessert

Cuisine American, European

Servings 12

Ingredients

Carrot Cake

500 g grated carrots (I use my kitchen machine to get the grating done quickly)
4 eggs
200 ml flavourless oil (I recommend regular canola or rapeseed oil)
½ lemon (zest and juice; can be replaced with orange)
300 g flour
220 g brown sugar (can be replaced with coconut blossom sugar or white sugar)
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
50 g mixed nuts (optional but I do recommend using them; walnuts and pecans work best)

Cream Cheese Glaze

200 g cream cheese (room temperature)
50 g melted butter
150 g powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
½ lemon (zest and juice; can also be replaced by an orange)

Instructions

Preheat your oven to 175°C. Butter up and line your 26 cm springform cake pan with parchment paper.
In a big bowl, mix your grated carrots with eggs, oil, lemon zest and lemon juice.
In another medium bowl, mix all the dry ingredients: flour, sugar, baking soda and baking powder, salt, cinnamon and nuts (if using). Then add the dry ingredients to the wet ones.
Gently mix until no dry flour nor sugar is visible.
Bake for around 1 hour to 1 hour and 10 minutes, until the cake is deep dark golden brown and a pick inserted to the cake comes out clean.
When the cake cools, prepare the cream cheese glaze. In a bowl, mix together all the ingredients listed for the glaze: room temperature cream cheese, melted butter, powdered sugar, vanilla extract, the other half of the lemon zest and juice. Let it cool and thicken up a bit.
Once the cake has completely cooled, using a spoon or a palette knife, spread the cream cheese glaze all over the cake. Decorate with gingerbread biscuits or some more lemon zest. Store in a fridge. It will keep for a couple of days, if you manage to last that long.

Notes

This recipe uses one lemon for both juice and zest. Grate the lemon and juice it, then use half in the cake batter and the other half of the zest and juice in the cream cheese glaze.

Keyword cake, carrots