It’s America’s National Carrot Cake Day so we are going to splurge on our precious find, this delicious cake recipe. And we want to share that with you!
It is also the season for lemons and we are going to be using some lemon juice in our frosting.
Today we are bringing you a recipe from one of our favorite bakers. Professional Chef Anna Olson who knows just how you can bake an amazing carrot cake from scratch!
Ingredients:
For the Cake
- Vegetable Oil (175 ml – ¾ cup)
- Eggs (3 large ones)
- Packed Light Brown Sugar (200 gr/1 cup)
- Granulated Sugar (100 gr – cup)
- Vanilla Extract (1 tsp/5ml)
- All-Purpose Flour (300 gr/2 cups)
- Baking Powder (2 tsp/6gr)
- Ground Cinnamon (1 tsp/3 gr)
- Baking Soda (½ tsp – 3 gr)
- Salt (½ tsp – 3 gr)
- Ground Allspice (½ tsp – 2 gr)
- Ground Cloves (¼ tsp – 1 gr)
- Loosely packed, finely grated Carrot (100 gr / 2 cups / about 7 oz)
- Lightly toasted Walnut pieces or Raisins (75 gr – ¾ cup – optional)
For the Frosting
- Brick Cream Cheese, at room temperature (225 gr / about 1 package)
- Unsalted Butter, at room temperature (60 gr – ¼ cup)
- Icing Sugar sifted (390 gr – 3 cups)
- Vanilla Extract (1 tsp / 5 ml)
- Lemon Juice (1 tsp / 5 ml)
- Lightly toasted Walnut pieces (for garnish)
Preparation:
For the Cake
Preheat the oven to 175 degrees C (350 degrees F).
Grease two 22 cm (9-inch) round cake pans and line the bottoms of the pans with parchment paper.
Whisk the oil, eggs, brown sugar, granulated sugar, and vanilla in a large bowl until blended.
In a separate bowl, sift the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, baking soda, salt, allspice, and cloves.
Stir in the grated carrot to coat it with the flour (this will help extract the most vivid color from the carrot).
Add this to the wet mixture and stir until evenly blended (the batter will be wet). Stir in the walnut pieces or raisins, if using.
Divide this between the 2 pans and bake the cakes for 25 to 30 minutes, until a skewer inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean.
Cool the cakes for 30 minutes in their pans, then turn out onto a cooling rack to cool completely.
For the Frosting
Beat the cream cheese and butter until smooth.
Add half of the icing sugar and beat until smooth.
Beat in the vanilla and lemon juice and then beat in the remaining icing sugar until light and fluffy.
To start assembling the cake, peel the parchment paper from the cake layers and place one layer onto a plate or platter.
Spread the top with a generous layer of frosting and top with the second cake, frosting the top and sides of the cakes with the remaining frosting mixture and using your spatula to create swirls in the frosting.
Sprinkle a few walnut pieces on the top of the cake as a garnish, or press the walnut pieces onto the sides of the cake.
The cake will keep, refrigerated, for up to 3 days.
Enjoy! 🙂
Tip: You can switch the walnuts with some pecans if you desire.
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