Carrot cake is a delicious way to get some vegetables in. It almost feels kind of healthy. Almost. It certainly doesn’t taste healthy when it’s done right. Sometimes, carrot cake can be hit-or-miss, but let us tell you when it’s done well, that cake can be beautifully baked, perfectly moist, and melts in your mouth like a chocolate cake.
Fill it with the perfect mix of spices, slather it with velvety, decadent cream cheese frosting, and it’s to die for. We will share the recipe for making a carrot cake that is moist and flavorful. We’re going to start with our star ingredients, carrots. You can control the carrots’ size and moisture content when hand-grating them. So when you’re shopping for them, you want to look for the biggest carrots you can find, making them easier to grate.
We’ll use the large side of a hand grater for added texture to our cake to highlight the carrots. Store-bought shredded carrots are often just too thick, and they’ve been dried out to preserve them, so they lack that flavor and moisture content we’re looking for. Cool! If you want to surprise your loved one with a 25th Anniversary Cake, this healthy cake surprise can help you a lot.
Let’s get started: –
The first thing we need to do is create a parchment round to line our cake pans. Take a small rectangle of parchment. Fold it in half. Fold it in half again. Then we’ll bring up the closed tip to create a narrow triangle. Place that closed tip in the center of the cake pan, and then we will mark the edge of the cake pan and cut off the excess parchment.
This way, unfolding that triangle should be a perfect circle that fits in the bottom of your cake pan. Now that you have your perfect circle, the best way to secure it to the pan is to use a little nonstick spray. Place the parchment circle inside and press down, and then spray the top of the parchment and the edges of the cake pan to ensure your cake does not stick.
Let’s Make This Cake:
The first step you will do is reheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
In a large bowl, we will combine the grated carrots and buttermilk and stir them until the carrots are completely coated. The fat and acid from the buttermilk help create a tighter and more tender cake crumb.
Remember that there’s a difference when you’re scooping versus spooning to level your flour. If you stick your measuring cup into your bag of flour, the scooping can pack it too tightly, and you’ll use just more flour than the recipe intends. What we like to do is spoon our flour into the measuring cup.
Let’s sift together the all-purpose flour and whole-wheat flour with the baking powder, cinnamon, ground ginger, salt, baking soda, ground cloves, ground allspice, and some freshly grated nutmeg. The carrot cake spice is generally closer to that of gingerbread. It’s more ginger- and cinnamon-forward. In the bowl of our stand mixer, Combine the brown sugar, granulated sugar, eggs, and vanilla extract.
Then we’ll fit it with the whisk attachment and beat it on medium speed until the mixture drops from the whisk into disappearing ribbons. It’ll take about three minutes. Keep in mind the importance of using room-temperature ingredients. We’ll slowly drizzle in vegetable oil with the mixer on medium speed. Use a neutral oil like grapeseed oil or vegetable. You can even use sunflowers.
Now, the oil does not want to mix with the water content from the eggs, so you need to incorporate the fat real slow while whisking real fast to emulsify and properly create a smooth, thick texture. Mix the mixture until it is fully emulsified. It’s probably going to take about two minutes. Now, we will alternate adding our dry mixture and our carrot mixture.
So we will start by adding a third of the flour mixture and mix it on low speed, just until the flour starts to get incorporated. Then we’ll add half of the carrot mixture and continue mixing on low speed until that feels incorporated. We’ll continue alternating, adding the flour and the carrot mixtures.
We will remove the bowl from the mixer and use a flat rubber spatula to bring the batter together. Keeping the whisk on and overmixing the cake batter will make the cake chewy and dense.
Now, divide the batter between the prepared cake pans. It’s not the sexiest cake batter poured, but wait till it’s baked. It’ll be worth it. We’ll bake them until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. It’ll take about 25 minutes. Let the cakes cool for about 10 minutes, remove them from the pans, and let them cool completely. Whether you want to send cake online or want to bake it to surprise your family, carrot cake is the best option as this is a delicious yet healthy delicacy.
Frosting
Now, we’re onto carrot cake’s best friend, that cream cheese frosting. We will take ours to the next level and add real vanilla beans. We’ll cream it together with butter, cream cheese, vanilla extract, and salt. Then we’ll add the powdered sugar and continue mixing until it’s silky and smooth.
Okay, now we’re ready to build this thing. We will use this frosting to spread between the cake layers and top this whole thing with whatever remaining frosting we have left.
Final Words
This is one of the best and most sexy desserts. Isn’t that just so satisfying? Whenever you want, you can have it. A carrot cake recipe that is moist, flavorful, stunning, and healthier. So, try this cake recipe and make your loved ones smile and be happier.