Description
This tender and moist carrot cake with vanilla cream cheese frosting is by far the best I’ve ever tried. The secret ingredient in this recipe is olive oil.
Ingredients
- FOR THE CAKE:
- 2-½ cups Flour (I Used 1:1 Ratio Of All-purpose To Whole Wheat Flour)
- ¾ cups Brown Sugar
- 2 teaspoons Cinnamon
- ½ teaspoons Baking Soda
- ½ teaspoons Apple Cider Vinegar
- ⅔ teaspoons Salt
- 3 Eggs At Room Temperature
- ¾ cups Olive Oil (pure, Light Or Mild)
- 9 ounces, weight Carrots (about 3-4 Medium-sized Carrots)
- 1-½ ounce, weight Pecans
- FOR THE FROSTING:
- 1-½ cup Cream Cheese
- ½ cups Unsalted Butter, Softened
- 3 Tablespoons Honey
- 1 teaspoon Pure Vanilla Extract
- 8 Carrot Cake Decorations Or Some Pecans, To Garnish
Preparation
In a large bowl, mix flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, baking soda, apple cider vinegar and salt.
In a medium bowl, mix together eggs and olive oil. Grate carrots and add them to the mixture. Chop pecans and add them as well.
Preheat oven to 150°C or 300°F. Pour the olive oil-carrot mixture into the flour mixture and stir well. Transfer to the baking dish. (Note: I used a 16 cm or 6 1/4 inch cake form but you can only fit half of the batter in it, which makes two layers. One more option would be to divide all the ingredients, including frosting, in half, in case you want a really small cake. The last option is to use a larger form and make it a two-layer cake—in this case, you might want to use less frosting, too.)
Bake for 1 hour in a small form or for 1 hour and 20 minutes in a large form. Poke it with a toothpick and if it comes out dry, it’s ready. Let cool and cut in half lengthwise, using a ruler if needed. If the surface is not flat, cut the excess off.
Meanwhile, prepare the cream cheese frosting. Combine the cream cheese, softened butter, honey and vanilla extract with a hand mixer or food processor.
Place the first cake layer on cake stand. Spread with 1/4 frosting using a spatula (or with 1/2 if you opt for two layers). Optional: use a pastry bag to spread the frosting around the rim. Top with the next cake layer. Repeat until you are out of layers.
Decorate with little sugar or marzipan carrots or pecans. Enjoy!
Notes
You can refrigerate this cake for up to 5 days.
