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 Jane – just wondering whether you need to weigh the eggs or what the weight should be?
I don’t for carrot cake x
Is it ok to use the carrot cake under fondant and for stacking cakes? Thank you and apologise if already answered.
It is, if dowels are used as it’s a very soft sponge x
I made this carrot cake at the weekend with your cream cheese frosting recipe. It was the best cake I have ever made. Even my mum didn’t believe it didn’t come out of a packet.
Hi Jane
I made your cake for my brother’s birthday and it’s probably the best cake I’ve ever made. I would like to do it again as a drip cake for my nanas 80th but I have two deep 6 inch x 4 inch tins and was going to cut the top off and in half. Would I still need to reduce the recipe to 2/3 or as I need more cake, keep the same? Same with the cream cheese, id imagine i will have to increase the recipe to cover a 4 tier drip cake but I wanted your advice.
Thank you x
If you want the sponges deeper I would keep the recipe the same and just bake for longer! and yes I would increase the cream cheese frosting x
I made this in 2 x 6 inch tins and used the remainder for 10 cupcakes! Awesome recipe. Everyone loved it. So simple to follow. I am slowly working through your recipes. X
Can i ask how long you baked for hun please as im
Looking to do 6 inch and the extra cuocakes would be perfect for my son to take school xx
Hi Debbie how long did you bake the 6″ cakes for ?
Hi! I’ve got one tin of 24cm, can I use the same recipe for this? And do I need to cut the cake in half in order to have two layers?
Hi Jane, I’m planning on making this for Christmas Day tomorrow, I want to use cream cheese frosting. What is the best way to store it as I know for the frosting it’s best kept in the fridge but I don’t want the cake drying out! It’s for my boyfriend’s family, his mum loved your cupcake recipe so much when I tried it a while ago, so I thought I’d give this a go!
Can’t wait to hear from you and Happy Christmas x
Carrot cake is usually absolutely fine in the fridge so I wouldn’t worry! x
I made this for the first time a couple of weeks ago and took it into work. It lasted until 12! Everyone said how lovely it was and I was asked to make one for someone’s birthday!
Thank you so much for such a great recipe.
Hi there, made your carrot cake is went down a treat, lovely and moist, I have to make this cake again but they want a 9″ one, how do i convert it to this size ,any help would be great,and i only have one 9″ tin so will have to bake twice
You would need to increase the total recipe by about another third! Then it may be easier to only mix up half (so that the second half isn’t sat whilst the first half bakes) x
Hi, if I made the sponges, then refrigerated them, would I be able to use this cake to decorate with buttercream, for a birthday cake?
Yes you can – sometimes refrigerating can dry out a cake, but it should be okay because its a carrot cake!
Hi Jane,
How can I make this without egg? And how much mix do I do for 2 6” tins?
Thanks x
I would use about 2/3 of the recipe for the smaller size and I would use a standard egg replacement such as mashed banana, flaxseed, or anything! It’s worth a google as there’s many methods x
Hi, do you think I could use gluten free flour instead please?
Thank you
Yeah it should be absolutely fine!! x
Made this today, I’ve never made a carrot cake before as it’s always seemed complex and daunting! This was so easy to make and it’s tastes incredible. Thank you Jane!
So glad you liked it!!
Made this with your cream cheese frosting for my boyfriend’s work this week (I wasn’t sure if the school I work in would let us bring in food to share at the moment but luckily his does 😂) having never made one before, and they said it’s the best carrot cake they’ve ever had 😄 thank you for this, your recipes are always amazing!
Ahh that’s just so so lovely!
Hi Jane,
I’ve just made this cake and it’s delicious! I’m wanting to make it into a 10” sponge with the two layers how much do I need to multiply the recipe by please? X
Hey! For a 10″ you use about 1.6x the recipe – so 2/3 more of the recipe! xx