Carrot Cake
I make a lot of carrot cake this time of year. It’s not just for Easter in my house; it’s also the birthday cake of choice for many friends with spring birthdays. We’ve been munching on carrot cake cupcakes, carrot muffins, carrot cake whoopie pies and the like since February. I’m confident this cake is the absolute best carrot dessert to be had. The full-size recipe I used as a reference for scaling down is one of my grandmother’s. No one is quite certain of its origin but most of the time, in my family, a recipe without a source can be attributed to an old issue of Southern Living or a church cookbook. Whatever the source, this cake makes all who taste it a little weak in the knees. The oil and egg make for a tender cake, the cinnamon adds warmth, and the cream cheese frosting provides its wonderful tanginess.
One small note here: You really need to manually shred the carrot with a hand grater. One year, I used my food processor to save time, but the thicker shreds made the texture of the cake seem off. Along these same lines, don’t be tempted to buy pre-shredded carrots. Use some muscle, we only need ¼ cup.
- FOR THE CAKE:
- ¼ cup canola oil
- ½ cup sugar
- 1 large egg
- ½ teaspoon cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon vanilla
- ¼ cup packed grated carrot (from 1 small carrot)
- ½ cup flour
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ¼ cup chopped walnuts
- FOR THE FROSTING:
- 3 ounce block of cream cheese, softened
- 2 tablespoons butter, softened
- 6 tablespoons powdered sugar
- ¼ teaspoon vanilla
- Grease a 6” round cake pan with shortening or cooking spray. Preheat the oven to 350°.
- In a medium bowl, beat together with an electric mixer the canola oil and sugar. Beat very well, about 1 minute.
- Add the egg, cinnamon and vanilla and beat another 30 seconds. Beat in the carrot for about 15 seconds–you want it to break up a bit so it stains the batter orange. Sprinkle the flour and baking powder on top and beat until just combined. Do not overmix. You may stir in the walnuts at this point or save them for the frosting, your choice.
- Pour the batter into the pan, place it on a baking sheet, and bake for 24-26 minutes. Test for doneness with a toothpick before removing from the oven–moist crumbs clinging to the toothpick is ideal.
- Allow the cake to cool completely on a wire rack before attempting to frost it.
- To make the frosting, ensure all ingredients are room temperature or you will end up with lumps. Beat together everything with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Tip the cake out of the pan, place it on a serving plate upside down (so that you have a flat surface on top) and spread the frosting on the cake. Garnish with walnuts. This cake tastes even better if allowed to sit one day (in the fridge) before serving.
This kind of looks like a dessert for one in my book;-)
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Adorable and I love that egg basket! Happy Easter to you sweets! Mwah!
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Love carrot cake – and you’re right, shredding by hand is the only way to go for the proper texture.
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So pretty!! I agree that grating your carrots by hand is the only way to go. And it totally pays off!
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a 6 inch cake, I love it..perfect size for just us girls, hubby doesn’t like carrot cake (what a downer)
forgot to write, love that cookie pic from the previous post!
sweetlife
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That is the cutest little carrot cake! It’s so nice to have recipes scaled down like this, thank you!
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That is so cute!!!!! I love your scaled down recipes, and need to buy some more mini pans so I can try more of them!
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Looks AMAZING! LOVE that Pic!!
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You had me at tender cake!! I love the combo of carrot cake and the cream cheese frosting mmm!
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I’ve been craving carrot cake like none other the past few days!
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Wow, this looks beautiful and delicious! I absolutely love carrot cake!
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It’s been a while since I made a real homemade carrot cake – this has definitely inspired me to get into the mood!
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This is my kind of website!! All of your recipes look so good. I have got to try your lemon bars ASAP!
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Carrot cakeis my brothers favorite and this is bookmarked!
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Thanks for recipe.Looks delicious
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Looks delicious! I love carrot cakes and muffins. If you like carrot cakes so much you should definitely try the Brazilian version of it – it has a chocolate glaze and all.
xx
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I’ve had carrot cake on the brain a lot lately and this looks delicious! Love the concept of scaling down the large portions for two.
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I can’t believe it but I’ve never made carrot cake! Putting this on my list to try!
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Beautifully made and photographed! Great tip on hand grating the carrots.
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Oh this looks amazing! I left a blog award for you over at http://kneadysweetie.blogspot.com/2011/04/blog-awards.html
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I just came upon your blog today and I think it was fate: I am always thinking about how to make desserts smaller because I want to back them but I don’t want them around the house for me and my boyfriend (read:me) to eat for the next 4 days. AND my favorite dessert is carrot cake.
So glad I stumbled upon this, thanks for the recipe and great post!
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Carrot cake is one of my favorites! I love the concept of your blog. I don’t make desserts too often because how many servings there are. No matter how yummy a cake is, eating 8 servings of it gets boring!
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I’ve made this recipe twice now, with RAVE reviews everytime!! Such a great serving size, and the best flavor. My fiance said it beats Publix’s carrot cake…which in Florida, says a lot!
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I made this carrot cake with my 3 yr old grandson, who loves to stir and add ingredients. This cake and frosting are delicious. Would you mind giving out the full-size recipe? Or do I just double or triple these ingredients? Thank you for sharing with us.
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I notice in this recipe there is no coconut. This cake is the perfect size but I wonder if I add coconut will that change the moisture balance of the recipe?
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Christina Reply:
February 11th, 2012 at 2:22 pm
Hi Janea
I think you would be safe stirring in up to 2 tablespoons of coconut. To play it even more safe, why not stir it into the frosting?
Happy baking!
Christina
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I made the carrot cake yesterday. It was wonderful. It was delicious. It made my husband moan. Thank goodness it is small or else I would be eating it all day long.
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I have made this before and it turned out wonderful! I wanted to make it into cupcakes this time though–would the bake time be the same or less?
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I made this for a small dinner (just the two of us and another couple). It was the perfect size – no over eating and guests seem to prefer that as well! It tasted great and was very moist. Loved it and plan to make it many times in the future. Thanks for your efforts at scaling down recipies – these need to become standard sizes!
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I have just started trying small-batch baking. I found your site, and I ordered the book _Small-Batch Baking_. I also ordered tiny 4″ cake pans. I love layer cakes, and size wise, you could pretty much take your 6″ cake recipes and bake 2-4″ layers and have a fun little layer cake.
http://www.amazon.com/Mini-Cake-Pans-Pkg-4×1-25-Round/dp/B001QJQ0E4/ref=sr_1_13?ie=UTF8&qid=1339805066&sr=8-13&keywords=wilton+cake+pans+mini
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Thanks so much for this simple, perfect-sized recipe! I will be making this for my son’s first birthday “smash” cake.
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This is really good. I am making this for my mom for Mother’s day and I made a test cake last night. I ate the entire thing, didn’t even need frosting. Yum.
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