Simple Carrot Cake

For the frosting: 8 ounces cream cheese (1 block package), room temperature · ~2 cups powdered sugar · ~¹⁄₄ cup milk or heavy cream · 1 stick salted butter, room temp · 1 pinch of salt

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If you’ve been tracking my recipes so far, you might notice that this is the first recipe with no chocolate to date. Listen, I’m a complex individual. I might only make desserts, but they aren’t all chocolate. Anyways, I call this a simple recipe because a lot of carrot cake recipes online will call for some other fruit like pineapple or applesauce to make the cake more moist — this doesn’t call for any of that. I don’t think it’s necessary. This cake is perfect and moist as is.

Step 1

Preheat the oven to 350°F (176°C).

Step 2

Whisk together: 2 cups all-purpose flour, 2 teaspoons baking soda, ¹⁄₂ teaspoon fine sea salt, 1 and ¹⁄₂ teaspoons ground cinnamon

Step 3

Grate 3 cups of carrots (5–6 full large carrots).

Step 4

Mix the 3 cups of carrots with your dry ingredients, until fully coated.

Step 5

In a separate bowl, mix together: 1 and ¹⁄₄ cups vegetable oil, 1 cup granulated sugar, 1 cup lightly packed brown sugar, 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Step 6

Once mixed, add: 4 large eggs, room temp

Step 7

Mix the ingredients of both bowls together, making sure to scrape the bottom of the bowl.

Step 8

Prepare your baking pan or pans with oil spray, then split your batter evenly (or fill your one pan).

Step 9

Bake at 350°F for 35 to 45 minutes, or until a butter knife inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Frosting

Beat together: 8 ounces cream cheese (room temperature), ~2 cups powdered sugar, ~¹⁄₄ cup milk or heavy cream, 1 stick salted butter (room temp), 1 pinch of salt — adding liquid to thin or sugar to thicken until you get the desired consistency. Be careful — a little milk goes a long way.

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Let’s discuss

You might look at those last pictures and think “That’s way too much frosting”. And you’re entitled to an opinion, even if it’s incorrect. One of my favorite adages I took from my mother is “Cake is but a vessel for frosting”. Anyways, you can always scrape it off, but you can’t always get more.

In this recipe I had you mix the carrots and the dry ingredients together because some people say that coating the carrots first helps suspend them in the wet batter so that they don’t all sink to the bottom. I haven’t personally found this to be an issue but it doesn’t hurt to do — unless you take a really long time after you coat the carrots (like maybe you realized you don’t have enough brown sugar and have to run to the store) in which case it can suck the moisture out of the carrots which will look a little funny but in the end will probably taste the exact same.

Like I mentioned at the top — some recipes will call for pineapple or applesauce or some other addition for more moisture. If you’re curious, I would give it a try! But most important is probably just not overbaking your cake.