If you are looking for an incredibly moist simple carrot cake recipe with butter then you have come to the right place. This is the best carrot cake, hands down with a light fluffy cream cheese frosting. Coarsely chopped pecans and bits of pineapple chunks make this one of the best incredibly moist carrot cake recipe you will ever find.
If you like carrot cake and cream cheese frosting, you will for sure love this Easy Moist Carrot Cake Recipe. This simple carrot cake recipe with butter and cream cheese frosting will quickly turn into one of your favorite cakes to make for any occasion.
Jump to:
- Ingredients Needed to Make this Simple Carrot Cake with Butter
- Instructions on How to Make this Moist and Simple Carrot Cake
- Instructions on How to Frost Layer Cakes
- Top Tips for Making Carrot Cake
- Substitutions and Variations for Making Carrot Cake
- Equipment Recommended to Make Carrot Cake
- Storing Carrot Cake
- Other Dessert and Snack Recipes
- PIN for Later Here
- Recipe Details
- Comments
You don't need to wait for a special time of year to make this from scratch carrot cake. Carrots are available at your market so it is easy to pick them up any time and make this homemade carrot cake.
This recipe was inspired by my Banana Loaf recipe that also uses a cream cheese frosting. Banana Loaf is a great way to use up your ripe bananas.
Ingredients Needed to Make this Simple Carrot Cake with Butter
This might seem like a long list of ingredients to make carrot cake, but, trust me, prepping the ingredients makes putting together this simple carrot cake easy peasy.
- grated carrots
- granulated sugar
- vanilla extract
- all purpose flour
- baking soda
- baking powder
- cinnamon
- butter or oil
- salt
- eggs
- pecans
- raisins or dates
- coconut flakes
- crushed pineapple (drained)
- cream cheese
- powdered sugar
- potato or corn starch
See recipe card for quantitites.
This Homemade Strawberry Sfoglia Cake made with frozen puff pastry is really easy to make but it will look like you spent hours in the kitchen. PIN this one to make later, you won't regret it!
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Instructions on How to Make this Moist and Simple Carrot Cake
Preheat your oven to 350° F degrees and line/grease two 8 inch round cake pans.
Beat your eggs in a stand mixer with sugar, then add melted butter a little at a time and vanilla extract.
Whisk together flour, cinnamon, baking soda, and baking powder. Add the flour mixture to your egg mixture until it has been well incorporated. Add the remaining dry ingredients and mix well by hand.
Pour the batter a little bit at a time into the prepared cake pans making sure that the batter is evenly distributed between the two cake pans.
Bake for 40 to 45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out dry. Remove from oven and let the cake layers cool completely on a cooling rack until they are at room temperature.
At this point you can freeze the butter carrot cake wrapped in foil or refrigerate it before you frost it with cream cheese frosting.
Instructions on How to Frost Layer Cakes
Whip your cream cheese and start adding the sifted powdered sugar to the mixing bowl a little at a time. Alternate adding the icing sugar and the whipping cream.
Stop to scrape down the mixing bowl to remove any clumps on the side of the mixing bowl. Add the corn starch and vanilla extract and continue to beat until you get a thick consistency.
If your frosting clumps up, don't panic. Take either a hair dryer or a warm tea towel and try and warm up the bottom of the bowl. This will make the cream cheese warm up so that it has a smoother consistency.
Take your cake out of the freezer, if you have frozen it (there's no need to thaw it out) and place it on a decorating board or plate.
Place a dollop of frosting on a cake board and then place your first cake layer down.
Top with the cream cheese frosting and spread out. You can also place the frosting in a piping bag and pipe out the frosting. Once the frosting is spread out evenly, place second layer on cake. Use the butter cream frosting to create a crumb coat on top of the cake and on the sides of the cake.
What's a crumb coat you ask?
A crumb coat is the first layer of frosting on a cake. It's called a crumb coat because usually the first layer is full of crumbs from the fresh baked cake. After the first coat of frosting, chill the cake for at least an hour. Then apply your second layer. Have the first coat (crumb coat) already on the cake makes the second layer of icing go on smoother with minimal crumbs.
If you are frosting a room temperature cake place it in the fridge for an hour before frosting with a second later.
Decorate it as you like and refrigerate the cake until you are ready to serve it.
Top Tips for Making Carrot Cake
If you don't have circular parchment paper, you can make your own as follows: for the bottom of the pans cut two pieces of parchment paper in the shape of a square as large as the pans. Then folded the square in half and then in half again.
HINT: If your frosting becomes lumpy when mixing in a stand mixer, use a hair dryer or warm damp cloth to warm up the bottom and sides of the bowl.
Substitutions and Variations for Making Carrot Cake
This carrot cake is super moist. The pineapple adds the majority of the moisture, next to the melted butter. Here are some substitutions to consider:
- Butter - substitute the butter with corn oil or avocado oil.
- Raisins - substitute the raisins with currents.
- Frosting - use pre-made frosting to make decorating this moist carrot cake easy and fuss free.
Have another idea? Go ahead and try it. Let your creativity out!
Reflection: Cooking is like science, you need to experiment with different combinations to come up with the perfect result (for you). But, don't worry if it's not perfect. Pat yourself on the back for trying, you deserve it! Just try and figure out what you did wrong and do it different next time.
Equipment Recommended to Make Carrot Cake
I'd be lying if I said, I didn't like Wilton brand cooking tools. I used these 8" baking pans, here. But you can use any baking pans so long as they aren't larger than 8" in diameter. Note that if the pans are larger, it just means that your cake will be thinner and wider.
Parchment paper also comes in handy to easily remove these cakes from their baking pans.
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Storing Carrot Cake
This cake is dense and moist and will refrigerate well for up to 5 days, covered.
You can also freeze for later. Before you freeze the cake, slice it in serving sizes. That way when you want to eat a piece, you can take it out per serving. Let the whole frozen cake thaw out in the refrigerator overnight. If you are taking a slice out, let it thaw out on the counter.
Note that the storage guidelines provided on this page and site are estimates from personal experiences. We are all adults and as an adult you are responsible to ensure that the food you eat is safe to eat. Since, I'm not a food safety expert, you are responsible to review your local guidelines on food storage prior to storing any food left-overs.
For Canadian Guidelines check Government of Canada's Food and Safety Guidelines for further information and resources.
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Recipe Details
Moist Simple Carrot Cake Recipe
Ingredients
For Cake
- 2 ½ cups Flour
- 1 ½ tsp baking soda
- 1 ¼ tsp baking powder
- 2 tsp ground cinnamon
- ½ tsp salt
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 4 large eggs
- ¾ cups of melted butter
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 cups grated carrots
- ¾ cups chopped pecans
- ½ cups raisins
- ¾ cups coconut flakes sweetened or unsweetened
- 8 oz crushed pineapple strained
For Cream Cheese Frosting
- 8 oz cream cheese (from fridge)
- 1 tbsp vanilla extract
- 2 cups icing sugar
- 2 ½ whipping cream 35% cream
- ¼ cups cornstarch
Instructions
Cake:
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Line the bottoms of 2 (8") pans with parchment paper (you can do this by tracing out the base of the pan and cutting what you have traced). This will help to detach the cake from the pan once cooled down. In addition, rub the sides with butter and sprinkle flour on top of the butter. This will help the sides detach from the sides easily.
- Mix thoroughly the flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon and salt. Set aside. In the mixing bowl of a stand mixer, add the sugar, eggs, butter (or oil) and vanilla. Mix for 2 to 3 minutes until well combined and light in color.
- Remove bowl from mixer and stir in the flour until moistened, then the carrots, pecans, raisins, pineapple and coconut. Divide the batter into two and fill each spring-form pan with the batter. Bake for about 40 to 45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle of the cake comes out dry. Be careful not to over cook.
- Cool the cakes completely. The cakes can be wrapped in foil and frozen if you are making it ahead of time. You can then remove them straight from the freezer and frost them without thawing.
Cream Cheese Frosting:
- In the bowl of a stand mixer beat the cream cheese until softened.
- Add the icing sugar and cream a little at a time alternating between the two. Scrape down the bowl as needed.
- Add vanilla extract and corn starch and continue to mix until the mixture thickens.
- If the mixture is too thick, add 1 tbsp. of cream until you reach the consistency you like.
- If there are clumps, use a blow dryer or warm rag to heat up the bottom of the bowl.
- Frost your cake from frozen or at room temperature. If needed refrigerate your cake between frosting layers.
Madison says
The best carrot cake I've ever baked! I love the addition of coconut.