Layered Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

4.81 from 31 votes

Layered Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

Is there really anything better than Layered Carrot Cake slathered with Cream Cheese Frosting? I don’t think so! And if there is, I have yet to discover it.

Prep Time20

Cook Time45

Total Time1 5

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: English

Servings: servings

Author: Gaby Dalkin

Ingredients

For the Carrot Cake

2 cups white sugar
1 ½ cups vegetable oil or coconut oil
4 large eggs
2 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
¾ teaspoon ground nutmeg
3 cups finely grated peeled carrots about 1 pound

For the Cream Cheese Frosting

4 cups powdered sugar
2 8- ounce packages cream cheese room temperature
½ cup 1 stick unsalted butter, room temperature
4 teaspoons vanilla extract

Instructions

Preheat oven to 325°F. Lightly grease three 9-inch-diameter cake pans with 1 ½-inch-high sides. Line bottom of pans with waxed paper. Lightly grease waxed paper. Using a large mixer, beat sugar and vegetable oil in bowl until combined. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Sift flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg into sugar and oil mixture. Stir in carrots.
Pour batter into prepared pans, dividing equally. Bake until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean and cakes begin to pull away from sides of pans, about 45 minutes. Cool in pans on racks 15 minutes. Turn out cakes onto racks and cool completely.
Using a mixer, beat all frosting ingredients in medium bowl until smooth and creamy.
Place 1 cake layer on platter. Spread with 1 cup frosting on top. Top with another cake layer. Spread with 1 cup frosting. Top with remaining cake layer. And more swirls of icing on top.
Top with flowers and decorations as desired

Notes

Grate your own carrots, every time. Pre-shredded bagged carrots are dry and cut too thick. Twelve ounces of whole carrots takes 4 minutes on a box grater and gives a meaningfully better crumb.
Use vegetable oil, not butter. Oil-based cakes stay moist for 3 days; butter-based cakes start drying out by hour 12. Carrot cake is built to live a few days, so oil wins.
Don't overmix once flour goes in. Stop the second the streaks disappear. Overmixed carrot cake bakes tough and rubbery instead of tender.
Bake all three layers at once on the same rack. Rotating between racks creates uneven layers and lopsided stacking. If your oven only fits two pans, bake the third separately and let the oven recover heat between batches.
Cool layers completely before frosting, no shortcuts. Even slightly warm cake melts cream cheese frosting into a slide. Chill the layers in the fridge for 20 minutes if you're racing the clock.
Level each layer with a serrated knife. Domed tops make the stack lean. Slice the dome flat before frosting so the cake reads as architectural, not lazy.
Crumb-coat first, then final-frost. Spread a thin layer of frosting all over, chill 15 minutes, then frost the show coat. Crumbs stay locked in the first layer instead of dragging through the finish.
Frosting needs to be cold-but-spreadable. Whip the cream cheese and butter together, then chill 10 minutes before frosting. Soft frosting slides; rock-hard frosting tears the crumb. Aim for the texture of stiff peanut butter.
Decorate with edible flowers, not piping. Pansies, violas, or nasturtiums on the sides turn the cake into a centerpiece without any pastry-bag skill. This is the move for Easter and baby showers.
Refrigerate before slicing, serve at room temp. Chill the frosted cake 1 hour for clean slices, then pull 30 minutes before serving so the frosting softens and the spice comes through.

Nutrition