Carrot Cake!
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Delicious and moist carrot cake, decorated with a lovely light vanilla buttercream and nuts!
Carrot cake
I love carrot cake. When I was little, I despised it because who on earth would want vegetables in a cake?! Little me was obviously wrong as it is DELICIOUS.
I posted my recipe for my carrot & walnut cupcakes a while ago and they’ve been a massive hit – they’re a big reader favourite as they’re so light and flavoursome and yumyumyum.
Recipe
I love this recipe as it has delicious spices from the flavours of mixed spice, cinnamon and ginger – I love this combination because it suits the light moistness of the carrot cake so well, but doesn’t over power it.
I was asked on my Facebook page for a whole carrot cake recipe as sometimes people don’t like transferring a cupcake recipe to a cake as they don’t know the baking times, or how much it’ll actually make – this led me to this beauty.
Buttercream Frosting
I decorate mine with either cream cheese frosting or vanilla buttercream – as this one was made as a request from my friend, we went with the buttercream! The vanilla from the buttercream gives it a delightful sweetness that I think is a cakey marriage made in heaven!
You can obviously use cream cheese frosting, I like to switch it up now and again. My carrot loaf cake has a cream cheese frosting and it is DELICIOUS! I quite like that cream cheese frosting doesn’t necessarily go with every cake so when you do have it, its not boring and always tastes amazing!
Decoration
I decorated my carrot cake with some small carrot toppers and a nice sprinkles of walnuts! You can of course leave the nuts off if you would prefer but I personally love the texture the walnuts give a carrot cake.
As with every bake, the decoration is optional and can be left if preferred or even scaled up a notch! You can add sprinkles instead of/as well as walnuts or you can top with dried fruit instead – the choice is yours! ENJOY!
Carrot Cake
Ingredients
Cake
- 225 ml sunflower oil
- 5 medium eggs
- 275 g light brown sugar
- 300 g grated carrots
- 100 g raisins optional
- Zest of 1 orange
- 275 g self raising flour
- 1.5 tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 2 tsp mixed spice
- 1 tsp ground ginger
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 100 g walnuts/chopped pecans optional
Buttercream/Decoration
- 250 g unsalted butter room temperature
- 500 g icing sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 - 3 tbsp boiling water
- Chopped nuts
- Carrot shapes/sprinkles
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 180C/160C Fan
- Grease & line two 8" cake tins with parchment paper
- Pour the sunflower oil and eggs into a large bowl and add the light brown sugar
- Mix lightly and combine
- Add the grated carrots and raisins (if using) and orange zest and fold through to combine
- Add the self raising flour, bicarbonate of soda, mixed spice, ginger, and cinnamon and mix again - try not to over mix!
- Once combined, fold through the nuts (if using) and pour into the prepared tins
- Bake the cakes in the oven for 30-35 minutes until cooked through (test with a cake tester, should be clean!)
- Leave to cool in the tin
Buttercream
- Beat the unsalted butter for a couple of minutes so its very smooth in a stand mixer with the paddle attachment
- Gradually add the icing sugar until all combined and beat on a high speed for a couple of minutes
- Once mixed, add the vanilla extract and mix again
- Whilst mixing, gradually add the boiling water until you reach your desired consistency
- Beat for another 5 minutes so its super light and fluffy
- Place one of your sponges onto the plate you're using, spread half of the buttercream on top, add the other sponge, and spread the rest of the buttercream on
- Decorate to your desire
- ENJOY!
Notes
- I prefer my carrot cake with just buttercream in-between and on top of the layers, but there is enough buttercream to spread it around the edges slightly too.
- You don't have to include the nuts, or the raisins, but I would recommend using at least one of them as the flavour is so delicious!
- This cake will last 4 days covered at room temperature!
- I used this tin!
- I used this piping bag!
- I used this piping tip!
ENJOY!
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J x
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Hi!
Due to lockdown I have been baking birthday cakes for my family and I have only used your recipe. My family love the cakes. I just wanted to say how much I appreciate your blogs and recipes. Il making this carrot cake for my dads birthday.
Thank you!
Ahh thank you so much! And I hope you all love the carrot cake!
Hi! I’m planning on making this for Father’s Day this year, but we’re not keen on cinnamon, will I be able to simply remove this or shall I replace it with something else? Thank you! 🙂
Hey! You can easily leave it out!! x
Hey hope your well. I love your bakes! What are the measurements if I bake these two layers on a 24cm cake tin? Hope you can get to me ASAP. Many thanks xx
Hey! I would use 1.5x the recipe, so add another half on! The baking time will increase by quite a bit x
Hi Jane,
Would it be okay to use Olive Oil instead of instead of Sunflower Oil. I’m sure I’ve asked you this for the cupcakes and you said yes. But just wanted to make sure it would be okay for the cake too?
You can – but sometimes it will have a stronger taste which some people don’t like! x
Fab recipe. Baked this for my Mum’s birthday and it went down a treat. She’s a massive fan of carrot cake and said this was one of the best she’d tried. Thanks Jane! xx
Ahh that’s amazing!!
Hello, I would love to make this cake, but haven’t managed to buy any light brown sugar. I have Demerara sugar or golden caster sugar in my cupboard, which would work best?
I would use the golden caster!
Hi Jane, I absolutely love your recipes.
Would I be able to bake this cake in one 8 inch cake tin instead of two? If so, what temperature and for how long? Thanks!
I’m afraid I don’t know the baking time as I haven’t tried this – I would assume at least double but I could be wrong.
Very delicious and moist! 😊
With this recipe, I would like to make it into a 3 layer, I calculated all the ingredients but I seemed to end up with all peculiar measurements, would I need to still use them or could I round up? Sorry I hope you understand that haha xx
Hey! So when making a two-layer cake a three-layer cake, I usually just do 1.5x the recipe. Some things may seem a little weird but I just round up to the nearest 10 (so like 410 rather than 406) x
Thankyou! I have tried countless carrot cake recipes and none seemed to have worked very well, but I know I can always count on your recipes so I’m looking forward to giving this a go xx
Hi Jane!
I’m having a real issue with my cakes not rising! Have you got any tips?
Thanks,
Hannah
The best thing I can suggest is to watch my YouTube video on this recipe – it might be over mixing, or something being measured incorrectly perhaps!
Wow looks amazing, what would be the conversation if I wanted to make it a 3 layer cake??
Many Thanks
Add on one more half again and bake into three tins!
Sounds amazing!! There seems to be a shortage of light brown sugar in the supermarkets at the moment, would normal caster sugar or Demerara sugar work??
Yes you can, either will work – Demerara is the closest flavour wise!