Have you ever wanted to bake a truly amazing carrot cake? Think all carrot cake recipes are the same? Not true! We did side-by-side taste tests with seven different highly rated carrot cakes (tough job, I know!), and this one was the clear winner.
My mother (a microbiologist/pastry chef) actually did all the baking and taste testing (well, I helped with the taste testing part ;-) ). And thanks to her hard work, we now have a carrot cake recipe that is utterly delicious and easy to make. Win win!
It's so tender, moist, amazingly flavorful, and easy to make. You'll never consider a boxed carrot cake cake mix again after trying this recipe.
Broadway Carrot Cake Recipe:
- 3 cups carrots, grated (about 4 large carrots)
- 2 cups sugar
- 2 cups flour
- 4 eggs
- 1 1/2 cups oil
- 8 oz cream cheese, softened
- 2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1 cup nuts, chopped
Start by grating your carrots. I get a big bag of organic carrots and shred them all at once.
The food processor [1] is the best tool for this job. Sure, you could use a hand grater, but that sounds absolutely miserable and boring. The right tools make cooking SO much easier and fun!
I make wrap up and freeze my extra grated carrots in 3 cup increments, just for this recipe. The frozen carrots work fabulously for cake. I also use 3 cups of shredded carrots in the carrot cake pancake recipe [2] I developed.
How to Make the Best Carrot Cake:
- Beat together carrots, sugar, flour, eggs, oil, and cream cheese.
- Add the baking soda, salt, cinnamon, vanilla, and nuts to the mixture, and mix well.
- Pour into a 9x13 baking pan, and bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for about 55 minutes (test for doneness with a toothpick or wooden skewer).
- If you're making cupcakes, bake for about 24 minutes at 350.
And of course, carrot cake wouldn't be carrot cake without being topped with cream cheese frosting [3]!
Of course you can make this into a layer cake, and decorate it as fancifully as you'd like, but sometimes I just want a homey, classic sheet cake, and for some reason, carrot cake seems like the perfect cake to make in that style.
It also makes incredibly cute cupcakes! I have a tutorial on how to make those cute little edible carrots (out of chocolate) on the blog here [4].