Very Good Carrot Cake Recipe

Carrot cake can be JUST as good as chocolate cake. My version blends smooth, perfectly spiced cake with tangy cream cheese frosting and gives any chocolate cake a run for its money. Bake it with me. Grab Bob’s Red Mill’s Unbleached White All-Purpose Flour & some of my other favorite Bob’s products in my Amazon storefront or at your local grocery store. When I bake with Bob’s Red Mill products, I know I’m fueling myself, my family, and my friends with the highest quality of ingredients since their products go through rigorous testing processes to safety. Comment how your baking goes. #bobsredmill

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*CARROT CAKE INGREDIENTS*
675g (1 1/2lb) carrots
550g (4 1/2c) all purpose flour
20g (4 t) baking powder
10g (2 t) baking soda
20g (4t) salt
8g (2 1/2t) cinnamon
3g (1t) ground ginger
3g (1t) ground nutmeg
400g (2c) white sugar
300g (1 1/3c) brown sugar
350g (1 2/3c) vegetable or olive oil
20g (4 1/2t) vanilla extract
8 lrg eggs
250g (1c) unsweetened applesauce

*CREAM CHEESE FROSTING*
675g (3 8oz blocks) cream cheese, room temp
2 sticks (226g) unsalted butter, room temp
10g (2 1/2 t) vanilla extract
7g (1 1/4 t) salt
50g (1/4 c) sour cream
375g (3c) powdered sugar
25g (3 T) cornstarch
8oz toasted chopped pecans

*INSTRUCTIONS*
1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
2. Peel & shred carrots using food processor with grating attachment or by hand with a box grater. Run a knife through the shredded carrots to break them down further.
3. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg. Set aside.
4. In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine sugars, oil, vanilla, eggs, & applesauce. Mix until well combined.
5. Add dry ingredients to the wet ingredients in the stand mixer bowl. Mix on medium-low until no lumps remain.
6. Mix in shredded carrots until evenly distributed in the batter, scraping down sides once.
7. Divide batter evenly between two 9″ springform pans lined with parchment paper on bottom, sprayed with pan spray, & placed on a sheet tray
8. Bake in preheated oven, 60-70 min or until a cake tester comes out clean.
9. Allow the cakes to cool completely in the pans for about an hour then cover and freeze for 30 min – 2 hours to firm.
10. While the cakes cool, prepare frosting. In a mixing bowl, combine room temperature cream cheese, butter, vanilla extract, salt, & sour cream. Whip until smooth & creamy.
11. Add powdered sugar & cornstarch, mixing for about a minute smooth and lump-free. 12. Refrigerate the frosting in a ziploc or piping bag to set while preparing the cakes.
12. Remove the cooled cakes from the pans and trim off the top and bottom to create flat surfaces. Place a bowl or other round thing that’s just smaller than the cakes on top and use it as a guide to cut off the edges of the cakes, creating vertical sides.
13. Freeze for 15-20 more minutes to firm
14. Place cake on a cake decorating turntable (or a flat plate). Apply a dab of frosting directly to the turntable to keep cake from moving. Swirl a ½” layer of frosting on top and spread in a flat layer from edge to edge. Add cake 2 on top.
15. Apply a thin layer of frosting all over the stacked cakes to seal in crumbs. Refrigerate or freeze the cakes for 25 minutes to set the crumb coat.
16. After cooling, apply a generous layer of cream cheese frosting to the cakes, ensuring even coverage.
17. Press toasted chopped pecans onto the sides of the cake Scrape off any excess pecans from the bottom edge of the cake.

*SHEET CAKE VERSION:*
360g (3c) flour
13g (2 1/2t) baking powder
7g (1 1/2t) baking soda
13g (1T) salt
5g (1 1/2t) cinnamon
2g (3/4t) nutmeg
2g (3/4t) ground ginger
5 large eggs
220g (1c) veg oil
170g (2/3c) unsweetened applesauce
260g (1 1/3c) sugar
200g (3/4c) brown sugar
13g (2 1/2t) vanilla
440g (1 lb) Grated, finely chopped carrots

SHEET CAKE FROSTING
340g (12oz) cream cheese
120g (8 ½ T) unsalted butter
30g (2 T) sour cream
4g (1 t) vanilla
190g (1 1/2c) powdered sugar
4g (3/4t) salt

Follow mixing instructions above. Pour batter into a greased 9×13″ cake pan & bake for 35-40 minutes. Cool, then frost.

CHAPTERS
0:00: Prep, mixing, baking
3:35 Flour of choice
4:54 Making cream cheese frosting
6:10 Frosting the cakes

#carrotcake

Hey what’s up carrot cake is better than chocolate cake what do you think about that that’s how I feel it’s good today I’m going to show you guys how to make my very well tested version of carrot cake it’s soft it’s springy it’s a little bit spiced and it’s topped with a

Tangy but well balanced cream cheese frosting to get started I’ll grab two sticks of butter three blocks of cream cheese and a pound and a half or about 675 G of peeled carrots I’ll let this cream cheese and butter temper then I’ll preheat my oven to 350f now to break

Down these carrots for the cake I’ll shred them with the food processor I’m always conflicted when adding an appliance to one of my recipes because not everybody has them but grating the 675 G of carrots that we need for the cake takes about 15 minutes of elbow

Grease that’s way more time than the 2 to 3 minutes it would take to wash the food processor and the grading attachment so that’s the route that I’m recommending but if all you have is a good oldfashioned box grader that would also work totally fine and once I’ve got

All my carrots shredded down I’m going to flip them onto my cutting board and run my knife through them five to six times to break them down even more this will help integrate the carrots into the background of the cake and help hide their fibrous texture I really hate

Carrot cakes that have crunchy carrot threads running throughout it messes with the enjoyment of the soft spongy cake and once my carrots have more of a ground texture than shredded I’ll set them aside and mix my dry ingredients for that I’ll combine 550 g of all-purpose flour with 20 G of baking

Powder 10 G of baking soda 20 G of salt 8 G of cinnamon 3 G of ground ginger and 3 G of ground nutmeg now let’s give these dry ingredients a quick whsp to combine then I’ll grab my steak sand mixer and start to mix up everything

Else into the bowl I’ll combine 400 G of white sugar 300 G of brown sugar 350 G of oil I’m using vegetable but olive would also be fine then 20 G of vanilla extract eight large eggs and then the secret ingredient 250 g of applesauce this makes the cake super moist and

Spongy into the bowl it goes then the paddle attachment goes on and I’ll spin this until everything is well combined I prefer to do this mix on Lower speed so that I don’t whip air into the eggs that’ll make the cake puff in the oven and then collapse later on not ideal for

A pretty layer cake and once these wet ingredients are mixed up I’ll grab my dry and shake it into the bowl there we go now I’ll mix this on medium speed until there’s no lumps of sugar or flour and everything is evenly combined from

Here I’ll add in all 675 G of my grated carrots and then I’ll mix slowly to fold those in that’ll take about a minute or so and once everything’s combined here I’ll stop the mixer then scrape down the sides to make sure none of the flour or

Sugar have escaped the mix now to bake this batter I’ll grab two 9in spring form pants if you don’t have spring forms then I would recommend going for the sheet cake version of this recipe which I’ll get to in just a second next I’ll spray each spring form briefly with

Pan spray then I’ll drop in a 9in round of parchment to make those I just traced the bottom plate of the spring form to make a properly sized Circle then I cut it out next I’ll spray the sides and bottom of the spring forms liberally with pan spray then I’ll put both pans

Onto sheet trays so no batter leaks out of the bottom and into my oven once these pans are all set up I can add in my cake batter I’ll try to do that as evenly as I can here I’ll just eyeball it then I’ll load both sheet trays into

My preheated 350f oven and bake them for 60 to 70 minutes now the sheetcake version of this recipe is equally as delicious just not as pretty to make it the mixing process is totally the same as it is for two layers but the recipe is smaller and I’ll put that batch size

For your reference down in the description below the two- layer cake and once the batter is mixed I’ll pour it out into a pan sprayed 9×13 cake pan then throw it into a 350 oven to bake for 35 to 40 minutes while that bakes I want to tell you about why I’ve been

Using Bob’s Redmill as my go-to allpurpose flour in recipes at home and on this YouTube channel for the last 3 years how about a quick story in 2021 I was actually loyal to a different flower brand other than Bob’s then one day out of the blue it seemed like all of my

Recipes stopped working and I started getting very inconsistent results and after a lot of frustration it became clear to me that the flower had changed somehow and it was to blame for everything being kind of weird ever since then I’ve been recommending Bob’s Redmill to you guys and now I’m very

Excited to announce that Bob’s Redmill is sponsoring this video what a dream I’m a Bob’s Fanboy because they use the highest quality ingredients and their products go through rigorous testing so you know you’re always getting safety and consistency Bobs makes a huge line of flowers and baking products most of

Which are in my pantry at all times and I like that I can pick them up at most grocery stores or even on Amazon I’ll drop the link below to the unbleached White allp purpose flour that I’m using in this video so that you guys can make

This carrot cake exactly the way I am at home back to the layer cakes it’s been 70 minutes and it’s time to check for dness I prefer to use this purpose made $1 cake tester because it’s super thin and doesn’t tear up my cake when I probe

It the cake tester is clean that means the cake is set so I’ll pull these out of the oven and let them cool completely that’ll take about an hour in the meantime I’ll make that Tangy cream cheese frosting remember that butter and cream cheese that we pulled out earlier

Well now it’s 100% room temperature and ready to party so to get started I’ll combine the butter I’ll combine the butter with three blocks of cream cheese come on get in there dude then 10 G of vanilla extract 7 G of salt and 50 g of sour cream to bring some additional

Tanginess now the Whisk attachment goes on and I’ll spin this up for 3 to 4 minutes until there are no lumps at all halfway through I’ll come back and scrape things down and bang everything out of the Whisk attachment then I’ll keep on whipping before I move on the

Butter and the cream cheese should look super silky smooth like this next I’ll add in 375 G of powdered sugar and then 25 G of cornstarch the cornstarch makes the frosting a little bit thicker and it makes it much easier to spread onto the cake now drop this mixer and spin the

Sugar and starch together for 1 minute the final frosting should be 100% lumpless with a velvety math Sheen flavor-wise it’s tart Tangy and has the perfect hit of sweetness if you’re making the sheet cake version of this recipe again the process is exactly the same but the amounts are smaller for

Reference they’ll be down in the description next I’ll move this frosting over to a plastic freezer bag this is my DIY Piping Bag for when it’s time to squeeze this frosting into the middle of the cake for now I’m going to throw this frosting into the fridge to set up while

I deal with the cakes at this point these are cooled down but still too warm to frost actually at this temperature the cake is very soft and crumbly and that means a lot of crumbs will get into the frosting and we’ll have a messy amateurish looking cake so to firm them

Up for the frosting stage I’m going to throw these cakes into the freezer covered with plastic wrap for as little as 30 minutes if you’re in a rush but preferably 2 hours 2 hours later you can see these cakes are nice and firmed up so now it’s time to build the final cake

But first I need to remove this firm hard baked exterior yes this outer stuff tastes good but it’s chewy and has a darker flavor than we want top tier cake shops trim all this stuff off and that is one of the reasons why their cakes are probably better than yours step one

Is to grab a long skinny knife this is a 12-in slice but a serrated knife would also work that I’ll carefully cut across the top in as flat of a plane as I can using a knife that’s longer than the cake is actually a little bit better

Here because the tip will extrude The Far Side and you can get a much better idea of what angle you’re cutting on and once I get past the halfway point I’ll put my hand behind The Cutting Edge of the blade that way it doesn’t pop out

And stab me once I’m through the far side now I’ll flip this cake over and then do the same thing on the back side this time however I don’t need to cut as deep because the bottom edge of the cake is naturally much flatter than the top

The top side rises in the oven and there’s a bunch of slopy edges that you need to get rid of and once I’ve got the bottom and top side cut off of two cake rounds it’s time to clean up those edges by the way cake scraps are really good

Savor them next I’ll take a bowl or a plate that’s just shy of 9 in and Trace around it with my pairing knife make sure to keep the knife perfectly vertical as you go I had some oopsies during testing and accidentally cut a very weird diagonal angle into my cake

And that was super hard to cover up with frosting and once I’m all the way around here I’ll remove the collar of cake carefully without tearing it then I’ll take off the lid and now we got a pretty freaking clean looking cylinder of cake it’s not perfect but very good before I

Frost these I need to firm them up one more time so I’ll throw them back into the freezer for 15 to 20 minutes next I’ll grab my favorite tool for frosting cakes it’s called a revolving cake decorating turntable it’s got rubber feet for stabilization and it turns so

You can easily spread the frosting Okay first I’ll squeeze three dabs of frosting right onto the turntable then I’ll grab an 8 in piece of cardboard and smush that down now three more small dabs on top of the cardboard then I’ll drop down my first cake next using my

Piping Bag of frosting I’m going to swirl a/ inch layer from edge to edge then I’ll come back and use my flattest spatula to spread that out as evenly as I can if the middle layer of frosting is lopsided here the whole cake is going to

Lean so take your time and make sure that it’s looking mucho flat next I’ll drop on cake two press it down then I’ll add on what’s called a crumb coat for that I’ll move my frosting over to a bowl and then grab a few doops at a time

And apply a thin veneer of frosting all over the whole cake maybe a 16th of an inch this layer seals the cake itself and prevents cake crumbs from being folded into the frosting layer just adding thick layers of frosting right onto the cake itself tears up the crumb

And makes an ugly facade and once I’ve got a thin layer of frosting coating just about every surface of the cake I’ll move it over to the fridge or freezer to set for 25 minutes this makes adding additional frosting way easier 25 minutes later when I pull this out it’s

Finally time to finish from here I’ll add on my frosting layer and just spread it around evenly the best I can I want the outer layer to be slightly thicker than a/ quarter inch overall my best advice for applying frosting would be to always keep a thick bead of frosting

Under your spatula and use gentle pressure you never want to be scraping the cake with a bare spatula because that will remove frosting not apply it also when it comes to the sides I think it’s best to apply a lot of frosting at once then position the SP up vertically

And use the rotating motion of the platform to do all the work for you this is kind of a practice makes perfect situation and it’s hard to teach with video and words alone you kind of have to do it to know how to do it as long as

You get it on there relatively evenly you’re going to be happy with the results now the final step here is to add a little bit of crunch on the outside of the cake to do that I’ll grab a large bowl drop my cake into it then

Grab 8 oz of toasted chopped pecans I’m going to spread these out on the side so only the five or six bites of the edge of the cake have some crunchy nut texture I really hate it when people put stuff inside of cake like raisins or

Nuts I mean the flavor of nuts is very complimentary here but when it’s on the inside it kind of steps on the entire reason that I’m eating cake in the first place which is to luxuriate in softness cake shouldn’t be crunchy that being said a little bit of nutty texture on

The outside brings some contrast and puts a nice period on the end of the sentence the final step here will be to take a dull knife and scrape off the excessive pecans from the bottom Edge then very very carefully lift this cake off its platform with a spatula and move

It over to a plate or a dish that’s easier to transport and if you’re following the sheetcake storyline in this video now would be the time to use that frosting the process here doesn’t really need any instruction other than keep the frosting flowing and try to make it pretty the eating experience of

This sheet cake is actually very very similar to the layer cake it’s just that it’s not as pretty and there’s probably a little bit less frosting overall it’s still miles better than anything you could go buy at the store and it’s really not very much work when I cut

Into the layer cake though oh my God you can see it’s perfectly frosted down the sides and throughout the middle and the cake itself is so obviously moist it’s spiced brown sugar cake that’s soft and spongy it’s got a little kick from the ground ginger and the acidity of the

Frosting on top brings the whole thing into a perfect balance I really think going through the trouble of making this cake is worth it because making pretty things is inherently fun and the results are pleasurable I really hope you guys go for this one sometime soon and if you

Do please tag me on Instagram now let’s eat this Thing