Fluffy, moist carrot cake with cream cheese frosting
This is the first carrot cake recipe I ever made, and the only carrot cake recipe I make. My sister’s close friend, Danika gave her the recipe several years ago, when they were in high school. I recently found out that Danika’s dad, Lee is the original author of the recipe, and I’m so grateful to them for sharing it with me!
There’s two things that all bakers claim they do the best. Banana bread [1] and carrot cake. But trust me when I say this: This is the best carrot cake you will ever try. Ever.
As a self-proclaimed cake connoisseur, I have tried many carrot cakes, but none compare to this one. There’s a reason this is the only carrot cake recipe I’ve ever made.
It is soft, fluffy (the oil instead of butter makes it super moist), perfectly spiced, perfectly sweetened and sufficiently carrotted.
Apart from grating the carrots, the cake batter is a breeze to assemble.
My favourite way of making carrot cake is in a rectangular pan, with a generous layer of cream cheese frosting (the same one I use for my lemon poppyseed cake [2] and red velvet cupcakes [3]). It isn’t anything fancy, but it is awfully comforting and takes me back a couple years.
Of course, you can embellish this carrot cake recipe and adorn it however you would like.
This recipe makes a large 9×13 inch cake, but can be halved for a smaller (9×9 inch) cake. You can also frost it with mocha fudge frosting [4] if you prefer. But quite frankly, there is nothing better than golden carrot cake speckled with nuts, and covered in cream cheese frosting.
Enough talk, let’s make this carrot cake recipe.
More cakes = less problems
So here are more cake recipes to try:
URLs in this post:
[1] Banana bread: https://www.hotchocolatehits.com/2015/03/lilys-banana-bread.html
[2] lemon poppyseed cake: https://www.hotchocolatehits.com/2016/06/poppy-seed-lemon-cake.html
[3] red velvet cupcakes: https://www.hotchocolatehits.com/2015/07/red-velvet-cupcakes.html
[4] mocha fudge frosting: https://www.hotchocolatehits.com/2015/11/mocha-pumpkin-cake-recipe.html
[5] Print Recipe: https://hotchocolatehits.com/wprm_print/23432
[6] Pin Recipe: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/create/bookmarklet/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fhotchocolatehits.com%2F2017%2F04%2Fthe-best-carrot-cake.html%2F&media=https%3A%2F%2Fhotchocolatehits.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2017%2F04%2FScreenshot-2023-08-31-at-11.46.31.png&description=The+Best+Carrot+Cake&is_video=false
[7] Rate Recipe: #commentform
[8] Mocha cheesecake: https://hotchocolatehits.com/2017/10/mocha-cheesecake.html/
[9] Tres Leches cake: https://hotchocolatehits.com/2020/06/tres-leches-cake-recipe.html/
[10] Vanilla pound cake with lemon glaze: https://hotchocolatehits.com/2021/10/vanilla-pound-cake-with-lemon-glaze-an-exciting-announcement.html/