Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Icing

Last week I made a total of 3 birthday cakes. That's a lot of cake for one week!


The second cake that I had made (the first was this delicious Black Forest Cake) was a Carrot Cake.  I didn't think my Carrot Cake Cupcakes recipe would be sturdy enough for layers, so instead I turned to allrecipes.com for a new recipe.

I ended up finding this recipe; with over 3000 positive reviews I was pretty confident that it would be an amazing cake!  

I made a couple minor changes to the recipe and it came out perfectly! It was moist and delicious, everything that a carrot cake should be.  This cake took 3 whole cups of shredded carrots, so delicious.

I used cream cheese frosting for both the inside layer and to frost the outside of the cake.

The writing, shell border, and mini carrots on the top of the cake were all made out of cream cheese frosting as well. I ended up doubling the frosting recipe (compared to what was suggested on the site) in order to frost and decorate the whole cake. I have included the amount that I made in the recipe below.

I cannot wait for an opportunity to make this cake again.


Carrot Cake

• 4 eggs
• 3/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
• 2 cups sugar
• 3 tsp vanilla
• 2 cups flour
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• 3 cups grated carrots (I shredded 8 regular carrots to get 3 cups worth)

1. Preheat the oven to 350 F and grease and flour two 8" round baking pans (or spray with baking spray)
2. In a large mixing bowl, beat together the eggs, oil, applesauce, sugar, and vanilla
3. In a second bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg
4. Add the dry ingredients and the shredded carrot to the wet ingredients, and mix until the batter just starts to come together
5. Pour into the two prepared pans, and bake for 30 - 35 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean when inserted into a cake
6. Let cool on a wire rack before frosting
7. When cool, level cake (if needed) before layering and adding the icing

Cream Cheese Icing

• 1 cup butter, room temperature
• 500 g (two packages) cream cheese, room temperature
• 8 cups icing sugar
• 2 tsp vanilla
• heavy cream, optional
• food colouring for icing, optional

1. Beat together the butter and cream cheese until light and fluffy
2. Add the icing sugar about 2 cups at a time, mixing thoroughly
3. Add the vanilla, and beat well
4. If necessary you can add heavy cream a couple teaspoons at a time (if the icing is too thick) until the desired consistency is reached. I usually don't need to add any, but it is an option.
5. Frost your cake (or cupcakes!) as desired
6. Enjoy!

I baked it up in two 8" round cake pans, but you could also make a sheet cake by using a 9" x 13" pan.

This was my second cake in a row to bake up flat! Almost no levelling was required!