Need a little comfort food? Don’t grab a boxed mix when this made-from-scratch carrot cake is so easy to make!
Start by grating some carrots. This is the most time-consuming part of making this cake. You can grate them by hand or use a food processor. You will need 3 cups of grated carrots. Once you have the carrots prepared, set them aside.
Next, preheat your oven to 350 then grease and flour a 9 x 13 pan. You can use a cake pan or a glass baking dish.
Ingredients:
4 eggs
1 1/4 c. vegetable oil
2 c. sugar
2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 c. flour
2 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
2 tsp. ground cinnamon
3 c. grated carrots
1 c. chopped pecans (optional)
Using a mixer, beat together eggs, oil, sugar, and vanilla. Mix this until it is nice and smooth. Mix in flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon. Stir in the carrots. If you are using pecans, stir them in.
Pour the batter into your prepared pan or baking dish.
Bake for 50 to 60 minutes or until a knife or toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.
Let the cake cook for at least 10 minutes then turn out onto a wire rack and cool completely. As an alternative, you can leave it in the baking dish, frost the top, and serve from the dish (which is what I usually do).
Once the cake is cooled completely, frost it with some homemade cream cheese frosting.
To make the frosting, combine 1/2 c. butter (softened), 8 oz. cream cheese (softened), 4 c. confectioners sugar, and 1 tsp. vanilla extract. Mix until this is nice and smooth. If you want, you can also add 1 c. chopped pecans. I like to leave out the pecans then sprinkle them on the frosted cake. I did not use pecans in the cake in the picture.
Don’t be concerned if your cake dips a little in the middle as it cools. If you invert it before frosting it, the “top” will be nice and flat. If you leave it in the baking dish like I do, you can fill in the dip with frosting!
Click here for a printable copy of the carrot cake recipe. Click here for a printable copy of the cream cheese frosting recipe.