Homemade Carrot Cake With Cream Cheese Frosting. I admit, my memories of carrot cake are a bit abnormal. When a bakery shelf becomes your natural before-school nap habitat, you catch glimpses of bakers taking full sheet cakes out of a room-size, Ferris-wheel oven.
You watch your mom carefully remove parchment papers the size of a small child off the bottom of each cake. You drool as each cake is cut into the sizes requested for each special-order customer.
You nap some more.
You wake up to dozens of 8-inch carrot cakes decorated with cream cheese frosting and carefully placed in a revolving case.
You pretend you can eat the cakes through the glass. You run to the back next to your momma’s side when you notice a customer giggling at your dramatic, cake-longing expressions.
You watch the carrot cakes go out the door one by one as customers proudly carry their boxes out to their cars to their celebrations.
You play with plastic cake decorating embellishment toys. (Even though I was shaped like a muffin and never danced, the ballerinas were my favorite).
You laugh as, once again, the baker purposefully trips and pretends to drop a gorgeous wedding cake, and your mom’s heart rate drops. “You jerk,” she replies to the man who signs her paycheck. This is almost a daily occurrence.
Homemade Carrot Cake With Cream Cheese Frosting
Preheat oven to 350°F.
Homemade Carrot Cake
- 2 3/4 cups flour
- 2 cups sugar
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 1/4 teaspoon sea salt
- 2 tablespoons ground cinnamon
- 1/8 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg
- 1/4 cup canola oil
- 1/4 cup unsalted butter, melted
- 2 cups buttermilk, room temperature
- 2 eggs, room temperature
- 1 1/2 cups grated carrots
- 1 cup raisins (optional)
- 1 1/2 cups chopped walnuts (optional)
Place dry ingredients into the mixer and mix until stirred together. Stop the mixer and add the remaining ingredients. Mix well.
Liberally butter and then lightly flour two 8-inch pans or one 9X13 pan (make sure to get all the corners well too). Pour batter into pans (or pan).
Bake for 45-55 minutes. The cake is done when a fork comes out clean.
If you’re making cupcakes, start checking for doneness at about 30 minutes.
Allow cake to cool completely. If baking in 9X13, just wait for the cake to cool completely, make half a batch of frosting, frost top of the cake, and serve out of the pan.
If making 2 8-inch cakes for a layered cake, make a full recipe of frosting. Wrap each cake in plastic wrap and freeze overnight or for a few hours then place on platter and frost. The easiest way for beginners to frost a cake is to use a decorating bag with a large tip to decorate. This alleviates crumbs that can happen when spreading with a spatula. Freezing your cakes before frosting also helps cut down the cakes and creates a moister cake.
Buttery Cream Cheese Frosting
- 8 ounces cream cheese, softened
- 8 ounces unsalted butter, softened
- 1 1/2 teaspoons sea salt
- 2 pounds powdered sugar
- 1/8 to 1/4 cup warm water
- 1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
Mix cream cheese, butter, and salt together on a high setting until they’re light & fluffy. This might take a couple of minutes. Add powdered sugar and mix on the lowest setting so it doesn’t fly out of the bowl. Add lemon juice. Then add water until the frosting reaches the consistency you’d like it to be. Turn up speed and whip for a couple more minutes.
And then you grow up and you realize. The cake is community. And you start a food website. Cuz everyone deserves to have a community of happiness. And cake. And jerks. And happiness.