Crowd-Pleasing Carrot Cake Recipes

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Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

This is a tall, moist carrot cake, light in texture and lightly spiced with cinnamon and touch of nutmeg. Heavy cream whipped into the cream cheese frosting makes it extra fluffy.

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Carrot Cake for Two

If you avoid baking a cake because there aren’t enough people in your home to help you eat it, then we have the solution: Make just one slice. We’ve scaled down a regular recipe so you won’t be stuck with leftovers.

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Carrot and Pineapple Cake

Ina’s fan-favorite recipe has hundreds of 5-star reviews. And, for good reason: the cake is perfectly moist and flavorful. Topped with a homemade cream cheese frosting and fresh pineapple it’s a next-level version of the classic.

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Mini Carrot Cakes with Cream Cheese Glaze

Whole wheat flour and Greek yogurt keep these cakes flavorful and moist while adding fiber and protein. Each cake gets 1 teaspoon of sweet cream cheese glaze — far fewer calories than the multiple tablespoons of frosting piled onto your typical cupcake.

Get the Recipe:Mini Carrot Cakes with Cream Cheese Glaze

Vegan Carrot Cake

This fluffy vegan carrot cake has warm hints of cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger, plus an extra-generous portion of shredded carrots for sweetness and moisture. The layers are satisfyingly tall, thanks to applesauce, which reacts with the baking soda and baking powder to help the cake rise. Eggs typically add structure to baked goods, but this recipe has enough flour and shredded carrots to compensate.

Get the Recipe:Vegan Carrot Cake

Carrot Cake Sandwich Cookies

These individual-size treats have all the carrot cake flavor you’re craving — packed into a fluffy little sandwich cookie. You can even make them up to two days ahead, making them the perfect goodie to serve when friends and family come over to visit.

Get the Recipe:Carrot Cake Sandwich Cookies

Carrot Cake-Cheesecake

Most people would agree that the cream cheese frosting is the best part of any carrot cake, so it makes perfect sense to replace it with a thick layer of creamy cheesecake. These two classic cakes make one showstopping mash-up dessert.

Get the Recipe:Carrot Cake-Cheesecake

Carrot Cake Pops

These aren’t garden-variety carrots: They’re carrot cakes! To make the veggie lookalikes, we mixed crumbled carrot cake and cream cheese frosting, formed it into logs, then coated the faux carrots in orange candy melts. The finishing touches: some scratches for texture, a little cocoa powder for dirt and a green licorice stem.

Get the Recipe:Carrot Cake Pops

Carrot Cake

Buddy’s frosting-free treat is all about the cake! He keeps it incredibly simple, using just 9 ingredients, so that the natural sweetness of carrots and the warming spiciness of cinnamon get a chance to shine. No frosting needed!

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Carrot Cake

When you need an easy-but-impressive dessert, this is the one to make. This towering masterpiece boasts 6 layers each of homemade carrot cake and cream cheese frosting.

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David’s Favorite Carrot Cake with Pineapple Cream Cheese Frosting

Nancy loads her carrot cake up with coconut, chopped walnuts and cut-up pineapple for a satisfying cake that’s full of sweet and delicious flavor.

Get the Recipe:David’s Favorite Carrot Cake with Pineapple Cream Cheese Frosting

Carrot Cake Jelly Roll

Each slice of this spiced, jelly roll-inspired cake comes with a creamy spiral of cream cheese frosting. Topped with cute frosting carrots, it’s an extra-special dessert for any celebration.

Get the Recipe:Carrot Cake Jelly Roll

Carrot Cake French Toast

Ree incorporates all the best elements of carrot cake (fresh carrots, cinnamon, brown sugar and even cream cheese frosting) into her easy breakfast bake.

Get the Recipe:Carrot Cake French Toast

The Best Carrot Cake

Our classic carrot cake is nicely spiced with cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg and has toasted pecans both in the cake and on top. Plumped golden raisins and a full pound of carrots make it nice and moist while buttermilk lends tang and tenderness. Our homemade cream-cheese frosting has just the right amount of sweetness.

Get the Recipe:The Best Carrot Cake

Slimmed Down Carrot Cake

Trisha’s trick to baking a better-for-you carrot cake? She uses coconut sugar which is less processed, and still contains some nutrients. She also bakes the carrot cake in a single layer, to cut down on the amount of frosting that is needed.

Get the Recipe:Slimmed Down Carrot Cake

Carrot Cake with Spiced Cream Cheese Frosting

Not only is the flavor of this perfectly spiced cake beautiful — the decorations are too. Molly rolls ribbons of rainbow carrots into small rosettes before carefully nestling them into the top of the frosted cake.

Get the Recipe:Molly’s Carrot Cake with Spiced Cream Cheese Frosting

Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

Everyone seems to have an opinion on carrot cake, especially in our test kitchen. In our (lengthy) discussions, we debated the merits of adding common ingredients like coconut, pineapple, and chopped nuts. We even discussed just how much carrot to add. In the end, we all agreed that the classic carrot should definitely be loaded with carrots, walnuts, and raisins. One thing the test kitchen could agree on was that carrot cake must be frosted with cream cheese frosting. That is NOT negotiable.

Get the Recipe:Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

Carrot-Coconut Birthday Cake

Coconut is the perfect complement to fresh carrot. Both ingredients have a balanced natural sweetness that’s not too sugary, giving this cake a flavor unlike any other.

Get the Recipe:Carrot-Coconut Birthday Cake

Carrot Cake with Ginger Cream Cheese Frosting

It’s a simple upgrade but adding a touch of fresh ginger to your homemade cream cheese frosting instantly elevates this classic dessert.

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Healthy Carrot Cake

Buttermilk and lots of grated carrots keeps this cake super moist without adding much fat. Whole wheat flour and pumpkin pie spice add a great spiced nutty taste.

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Halwa Carrot Cake

Maneet makes carrot halwa from scratch and sandwiches it between two rounds of freshly baked carrot cake for an over-the-top dessert that pays homage to the ones her grandmother used to bake.

Get the Recipe:Halwa Carrot Cake

Carrot Cake Baked Oatmeal

Carrot cake for breakfast? Yes, please! Molly even tops her baked oatmeal with dollops of sweetned cream cheese for the full effect.

Get the Recipe:Carrot Cake Baked Oatmeal

Carrot Cake

Top this lightly spiced cake with a simple cream cheese frosting for a classic dessert you’ll make again and again.

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Flourless Carrot Bundt Cake

This oh-so-delicious cake swaps regular flour for almond flour — making this cake the perfect treat for anyone avoiding gluten.

Get the Recipe:Flourless Carrot Bundt Cake

Upside-Down Carrot Cake

We thought outside the box (or, in this case, upside-down) to come up with this carrot cake. Instead of shredding carrots and folding them into the batter, we used a vegetable peeler to make ribbons and candied them in a butter-and-sugar mixture for a fun and pretty topping.

Get the Recipe:Upside-Down Carrot Cake

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