Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting Recipe

This Carrot Cake is so simple and delicious to whip up in minimal time.

And you don't need to be a master baker to execute this recipe.

Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

How to make Carrot Cake with a Cream Cheese Frosting

Makes: 1 Cake with two layers

Ingredients:

For the Carrot Cake:

• 340g Sugar
• 7g Salt
• 160g Bread Flour
• 7g Ground Cinnamon
• 3g Baking powder
• 2g Baking soda
• 178g Eggs
• 142g Vegetable Oil
• 178g Grated Carrots
• 57g Chopped Walnuts

Method: The times allotted in brackets are a guide for how long you should be spending on each step.

1. Turn on oven 177C. [2min]
2. Grease two round cake pans and then line it with parchment paper [2min]. *See Chef's notes
3. Measure out ingredients. [10min]
4. Grate the carrots and chop the walnuts. [10min]
5. Combine sugar and salt. [5min]
6. In a separate mixing bowl, sift the flour, cinnamon, baking powder and baking soda. [5min]
7. Using your handheld electric whisk or freestanding mixer, whip the eggs on medium speed until thick. [8min]
8. Increase the speed (on high) until eggs thicken. [8min]
9. Now, gradually add the oil, continuing to whip on high speed until everything is evenly blended. [5min]
10. Turn down to medium speed and now gradually add the sugar. [5min]
11. Turn down to low speed and add the sifted flour. Continue mixing until just incorporated. [5min]
12. Turn off the mixer and fold in the carrots and walnuts with a spatula. [5min]
13. Remove the bowl from the mixer and scale 90g batter into each prepped pan. [10min]*See Chef's notes
14. Place into the preheated oven and bake for 50 min. Test 'doneness' by placing a skewer in the centre and make sure it comes out clean. [52min]
15. Once done, remove the pans and place onto a cooling rack. Cool the cakes in the pan for the first few minutes. Then remove from the pans and cool completely on wire rack. [15min]

For the Cream Cheese Frosting:

• 450g Cream Cheese
• 230g Soft Butter
• 230g Icing / Powdered Sugar (Confectioner's sugar)
• 15ml Vanilla Extract

Method:

1. Place the cream cheese in a freestanding mixer and blend with a paddle attachment on low speed. Blend until you get a smooth consistency / texture.
2. Now add the softened butter in stages. Make sure it blends well.
3. On the same low speed, add the icing sugar and blend until fully incorporated.
4. Once incorporated, turn up to high speed and continue mixing until the cream becomes light and fluffy. This should take approx. 5 minutes.
5. Lastly, add in the vanilla extract and blend until well incorporated. [2min]
6. Once done, cover the cream with cling film and store in the fridge until you're ready to decorate the cake.

Chef's notes:

• Always crack the eggs in advance. That way you save time during your recipe steps without having to stop to crack it or accidentally drop cracked egg shell into the batter.
• If you're using a freestanding mixer, use the whip attachment to whip the eggs.
• 'Scale 90g' just means to measure exactly this amount for each pan. The easiest way do this: place 1 prepped pan onto a digital scale, set the weight to '0' and then pour the cake batter into it until the screen displays 90g. Do the same for the other prepped pan, but the balance of the batter should be 90g anyway, because you are dividing the batter in half.
• To grease the cake pans, use softened butter, generic non-stick cooking spray or Canola cooking spray. Don't use Olive Oil cooking spray, use a neutral fat with no flavour. I like the Canola brand (no affiliation), it's flavourless and contains no preservatives or colourants.
• You can use a handheld whisk to make the cream cheese batter as well.

Variations:

1. Create a Beetroot Chocolate cake using the same base ingredients, except for these two substitutions.

• Replace Bread Flour with this combination: 131.6g of Bread Flour + 28g Cocoa Powder
• Replace all the grated Carrots with: 151.6g of grated Beetroot

2. Create a Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting by adding the zest of 1 lemon to this icing batter. Always grate zest with a microplane grater (no affiliation).

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