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A delicious, easy, and moreish carrot cake traybake with cream cheese frosting and chopped nuts!

Carrot cake

So, this may be controversial, but carrot cake is my favourite flavour cake. I know, I know, I say everything is my favourite but I do genuinely adore a good chunky slice of carrot cake.

So… it’s time for a carrot cake traybake! Easter time is usually full of chocolate and such, which I obviously adore.. but it’s not to everyone’s taste. I get that, and I accept that, and to be honest… I love carrot cake. I based this recipe on my carrot cake recipe, and it’s just so good! Not trying to blow my own trumpet of course

Traybake cakes

It’s such a versatile recipe, that I thought I would make it a bit differently by making it into a traybake! Traybake cakes aren’t something I have done a lot of, but to be honest they are SO much easier than a layer cake! You just have to show it into the tin, bake it, and slather on the decoration! No fancy layering or piping required.

I didn’t quite double my carrot cake recipe as it would have been too much for the tin, but its an ‘increased’ version which is ideal. I literally use a traybake tin for this as it was the right size, but any traybake style tin is good. You will just want it to be a similar size to the one I have used.

My chocolate fudge traybake cake has always been so popular, along with my school cake… a traybake tin is so popular for bakes and so versatile for recipes that I just really recommend grabbing one.

The cake

The cake itself is so light, and so (I hate to use the word) ~moist~, it is just delicious. Honestly I think carrot cake is one of my favourite cakes, if not my actual favourite, so I devour far too many pieces when I make this recipe. And you know, its got carrots and raisins in so it’s clearly good for you.

The recipe uses an oil base for the sponge, along with a mix of brown sugar, eggs, flour, bicarb, and then the flavours. I add a little orange zest because I adore orange in the sponge of a carrot cake, it’s got the carrots (obviously), some raisins as mentioned above, and then the spices. I wanted to make my carrot cake nice and warm as always so I put in some mixed spice, ginger and cinnamon.

This mixture is so easy to mix together in a bowl with a spoon or spatula. Honestly, you don’t need to use a mixer for a carrot cake, you just need a large bowl. I tend to mix the wet ingredients together first, and then I add the dry and mix until just combined.

Cream cheese frosting

I did make this slightly different to my carrot cake however and used a cream cheese frosting like the one in my red velvet cake. I thought a carrot cake traybake would need a bit more jazzing up, and the cream cheese frosting is ideal. Its silky, its smooth, and it tastes damn good.

Often people can have problems with making a cream cheese frosting and its often down to over mixing, or the water content of the cream cheese. Some countries cream cheese has a higher water content, and even different brands do. If you feel like yours is extra specially water, you can try and squeeze some out before adding to the butter.

When mixing the frosting, you want to be gentle. You really can’t over mix it otherwise you might have a sloppy mess! Either way though, because the cake will have to be stored in the fridge, it’ll firm the frosting up somewhat anyway! And then with the addition of the crunch of the nuts, its DELICIOUS.

Make sure to use full-fat cream cheese, leave out the spices if you don’t fancy it, but either way.. just follow the recipe and trust me you’ll love the frosting.

Recipe adaptations

You can see in the pictures how delicious it looks, but it is definitely versatile. Add more nuts, no nuts, add more raisins, or no raisins… its entirely up to you. If you wanted to use a buttercream topping so it doesn’t have to be kept in the fridge, then you can easily use the one from the original carrot cake recipe. It’s the best thing to do if you want it to be out at a party for example or you have to travel with it!

I swapped up and adapted the recipe in March 2024, and the only difference was the cream cheese frosting. I will say I really do prefer my new cream cheese frosting recipe which you can find here, and the one on this post is a delicious spiced version for this traybake.

Tips & Tricks

I use this traybake tin for my cakes
The raisins are optional, or interchangeable with nuts if you prefer
This cake will last for 3 days in the fridge
The cake can freeze for 3 months
If you need to have the cake at room temperature for any length of time, you can switch the frosting to buttercream to make it safe