BA’s Best Carrot Cake Recipe

The search for the perfect carrot cake recipe is over!! This is by fare the best carrot cake recipe of the many different recipes that I have tried over the years. The rum-soaked raison and toasted nuts are a nice touch and add depth of flavor. The tender consistency (relatively speaking) and large layers make this 2-layer cake present as well as a 3-layer version. The only thing that I changed was substituting one of the two teaspoons of ginger with one teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice.

I made this for a friend’s birthday, and the cake turned out great. A super delicious, classic carrot cake. I’m 50/50 on raisins generally- but even enjoyed them in this cake!

I am so bad at baking, like really bad, but every time I make this cake it turns out amazing. I don’t know if it’s because of the clear instructions, the ingredients, or consistent luck, but this recipe is fool-proof. Take it from me. It’s delicious and my mom asks me to bake it every 2-3 months even though she typically hates baked goods (criminal, I know).

Great recipe. I weighed the carrots and used a scant cup of sugar. The directions about beating the eggs, sugar and vanilla until light and thick then slowly blending in the oil were useful. It gave a light fluffly cake without is seeming greasy. Bake until nicely browned. I separated the batter into a bundt pan and 12 muffin cups and guessed at the timing. muffins took 25-30 minutes. Bundt pan 45 ish. At 25 minutes, the muffins were a bit underdone for muffins but were amazing in flavour and texture for a pudding-type cake. …Worth trying this recipe again as a two-layer cake.

I loved how this carrot cake turned out! Light but hearty from all the spices and rum, perfectly moist with bites of toasty walnuts. My husband and his family are huge carrot cake fans so I wanted to impress, and this did the trick. I think the complaints of a ‘dense, rubbery’ cake may come from how the oil is incorporated into the batter. A veeeeeeery slow stream of oil is required to emulsify it correctly, my batter came out light and airy not watery. I also don’t agree with the ‘too sweet’ complaints, the balance of the carrots, walnuts, spices and cream cheese was absolutely perfect. My frosting didn’t need 4 cups of powdered sugar, closer to 2, to get that light creamy whip and maybe that helped. Thanks Claire for another amazing recipe! Will be remaking this soon for sure

Fantastic carrot cake, but I omit the nuts and raisins. I’ve made this about five times and each time it turns out great. The frosting does NOT need 4 cups of sugar though. The great thing about cream cheese frosting is tasting the cream cheese! I use just under 1 cup and think it tastes great that way.
I would follow the other comments recommendations to cut the sugars in half. The cake simply doesn’t need it, and I have a pretty big sweet tooth.

This was a Big NO for me but I tried it to please my daughter. Too Sweet. Terrible gloppy frosting added nothing to the flavor but more sweet. I will return to my very popular version of carrot cake with less sugar, cooked and shredded carrots, walnuts and yes, coconut & pineapple with a light lemony cream cheese frosting because it is the most requested cake I have ever made. A labor of love to be sure and worth it.

To Roger Carrot
You didn’t add the buttermilk? The buttermilk is the only liquid besides the eggs, But yet you said it was a good cake? Step 2 specifically says to combine the buttermilk and carrots together then in step 3 it says to alternate the dry ingredients with the wet, so what “wet” ingredient did you use? Your review is confusing

Followed the recipe, made a batch of muffins and a cake. But after rising nicely in the oven, they punctured like a balloon, became flat and rubbery. Threw all of it in the bin, which I never do. Sorry.

Light and delicious! I made it in a 9 x 13 pan.
But, um, I didn’t add the buttermilk: you forgot to include it in the procedure for mixing the liquid portion.
I suspect it would have been a little heavier with the buttermilk.
Will try your recipe again!

The cake was moist and flavorful. The cream cheese frosting didn’t work at all. It was much too sweet and too thick to whip properly–it kept getting stuck on and climbing the mixer blades, though I followed the instructions to a T. I’d make this again but use a different frosting recipe.

This came turned out absolutely delicious! Loved the addition of nuts into the cake as well as the spices. Like most American desserts I knew I had to cut down the amount of sugar – with that adjustment it was absolutely delicious. I also used 1/2 whole wheat and 1/2 all purpose flour. Super moist- will definitely make it again. On a side note why do American recipes always have so much sugar?

I have made this carrot cake twice now, both times for my husbands birthday. We love it so much I’ll probably never go looking for another! I followed it exactly except for omitting the walnuts with beautiful results.. including the carrot coins 🙂
We love the cream cheese icing but have also made it with buttercream icing which is equally delicious.

So obsessed with this recipe! I halved the recipe, made it in a loaf pan, and skipped the icing. I also added HELLA more walnuts and cut down the sugar slightly after reading the comments. Next time I skip the icing I think I’ll use all the sugar in the recipe to make it more sweet.

While the cake itself was excellent, I cut the sugar A LOT and it was still pretty sweet. I kept the cup of white sugar and ditched the brown sugar. Of course, I’m aware that American recipes are usually awfully sweet, so if it looks like too much sugar, it is. I didn’t add the walnuts to the cake, as that speaks to me more of a bread than a cake, but the raisins were a lovely, yummy touch. There seemed to be an unusual amount of cake batter at the end, and it was – I filled two cake tins and then filled nine cups of a muffin tin as well. The frosting was also way too much, and I was glad I’d only put in ca. 3 cups instead of four of the confectioner’s sugar. As I don’t want to be making nine extra cupcakes whenever I bake a cake, I’ll look for and try out a smaller recipe.