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Carrot Cake with Maple Cream Cheese Frosting
August 24th, 2011Recipes, Baking Recipes, Recipes37 Comments
One of my favorite root vegetables is carrot. I love carrot in my soups, drinks (carrot juice), so it’s no surprise that I love carrot cake, even though the idea of adding carrots to a cake is somewhat bizarre, but carrot cake is a good cake. My contributor Pick Yin at Life is Great is here to share her carrot cake recipe, topped with a rich and decadent maple cream cheese frosting. Just the name alone is mouthwatering enough. Check it out!
Carrot cake…who knew I’d love it?
When I first announced to Vijay that I’d make some soon, he asked “The white one or the black one?” – referring to the Chinese fried radish cake rather than this baked cake frosted with cream cheese. He knew I’m not that girl who’d put a root vegetable and a cake together and I’d sooner turn a bunch of carrots into a pot of soup before considering them in a healthy dessert…
However, with more than a handful of friends professing themselves as carrot cake fans and Bee listing it as something she’d like to see featured here, it was imminent that I’d be baking one and eating some. There’s a first time for everything in life, so with not much reference or recommended recipes to fall on, I studied a few recipes and adapted what I thought were the best elements from each to come up with a carrot cake I really didn’t want to share.
The base recipe is from no other than my favorite celebration cake lady. Deb’s cakes had never failed me. I wanted a smooth crumbed cake—no chunky bits of nuts or fruits in my cake, please—one that’s packed with flavor, yet moist and preferably melt in my mouth, along with an exceptional frosting. I was pleased that my adaptation worked out really well. It took some will power on my behalf to refrain from cutting into the cake layers as they cooled. I resorted to snacking on what little crumbs that were falling off the cooling racks instead.
Carrot cake die-hards would each have their own favorites but the best thing about this carrot cake is you can alter it to your preference. Don’t like pineapples? Use some apple sauce instead. George Calombaris’s mother used apricot jam in hers. You won’t really taste any of the fruit but the flavor and texture of the cake would be greatly improved. Don’t have walnuts? Use pecans, macadamias or even cashews.
There isn’t really a recipe set in stone when it comes to a carrot cake. There’s only a favorite. I hope this version of mine would be yours too.
(Click Page 2 for the Carrot Cake Recipe)
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carrot cake’s my fav~!
Awe I’m gonna try this recipe.
This is amazing!
Instead of pineapple slices pureed, I use well-drained canned crushed pineapple. The pineapple canned in pineapple juice. I think if you used canned pineapple in syrup, it loses the pineapple taste too much.
Kushi: Exactly. I used pineapple slices canned in their own juices, not the kind in syrup.
Kushi: Exactly. I used pineapple canned in its own juices, not the kind in syrup.
I love carrot cake! This looks great!
looks yum! can’t wait to try it!
Did you use white carrot or orange carrots.
Decadent…ly good.
wowwwww, i mean this is a show stopper if ever i saw one! Carrot cake is one of my all time favourites, this is a lovely recipe and your photos are PERFECT!
what a stunner. and i totally agree on preferring a smoother cake.
I absoulutely love carrot cake with cream chees frosting but the idea of adding a maple cream cheese frosting sounds delicious!
Your photos are lovely! I love a good carrot cake and really like the idea of using maple in the frosting!
absolutely LOVE carrot cake and the photos look amazing! (: Now I’m craving for some and I just woke up! haha
Thank you for all your kind comments. I think Deb’s idea to incorporate maple syrup into the cream cheese frosting was nothing short of genius.
wow, this looks so elegant
Looks perfect. Just curious, did you eat the whole thing?
Indu: Thank you. I ate a piece and a half, Vijay ate some and the rest was given away.
Ah, I remember this one from your Twitter pictures! This looks fabulous and the frosting is impeccable!
Wow! I love carrot cake, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen one quite so beautiful. Just deliciously gorgeous! ;)
Tried this today, unfortunately didnt turn out too well. The cake was far too dense/wet and thats after cooking it for an extra 40mins! so not sure what went wrong, should the carrots be squeezed to remove excess liquid?
Flavour was great though
MyM: An extra 40 mins? Did you bake all the batter in one tin? The carrots should be just grated. Did you use all the liquid from the canned pineapple? The prepared pineapple puree should come to no more than 1/4 cup.
I used 3×8″ tins, had slightly more than 1/4 cup of puree but didnt use any juice, was going to check the cake earlier to make sure it hadn’t dried out by not using the juice. Nevermind, maybe I was just unlucky, it happens.
There are some people on Smitten Kitchen who found the cake too wet/oily/heavy for their liking. Some reduced the vegetable oil by up to 1/2 cup and found the cake still pretty good.
Regarding the longer baking time, if this happened before to your other cakes, I reckon checking with an oven thermometer might help to see if the temperature is right. Hope this helps!
whoaa the cakes is awesome!!!
what’s the decoration on top? caramel? It looks fabulous~
How to make the sugar decorations?
Julia: Thank you! Yes, it was some toffee hazelnuts which was a little too dark.
Luke: To make the toffee hazelnuts:
Roast some hazelnuts or macadamia – I used the oven, you can also do it with a frying pan. Let cool to room temperature. Poke the base of each nut with a toothpick.
Melt some sugar in a heavy-based saucepan – I used castor sugar. Without stirring over medium low to medium heat, move the pan around from time to time to even out the caramel. Once a nice golden brown color is achieved, remove from heat and let cool till the caramel thickens enough to coat the nuts. (Don’t let the color be as dark as mine, I overdid it.)
Dip the prepared nuts into the caramel to coat evenly. Lift upwards 90 degrees to drip and create the ‘spike’. Cut of the cooled sugar strand with a pair of kitchen scissors and leave to rest on a plate/tray lined with parchment paper. Once caramel is fully set, remove the toothpick and set the nuts upright.
This is gorgeous! Really love your blog that you would invite guest to do a write up on some specialties. :) more baking recipes? ;)
I love carrot cake! OMG… I love the photos, too! I wish I can make something like that…
Rachel: You CAN! It’s a very achievable recipe. A couple of readers have tried it. Give it a shot!
The cake looks so pretty and delicious. I am going to make this cake for my husband 40th birthday! Could I ask you where do you get the cake stand?
Thanks in advance!
Tini
Hi Tini, you can just do a Google search and find many online.
Hi Tini, I reside in Singapore. That cake stand is not really a cake stand. It’s a cheeseboard (from Robinson’s) placed on top of a wooden bowl (from MUJI). You may find wooden cake stands sold online too.
Thank you for the info!
Hi! I wanted to make this as a 2 layer 9″ cake, but slice the layers in half to make 4 thin layers. Will I need to double the maple frosting recipe for 4 thin layers? Or is the quantity of frosting in a single recipe enough? If you could please give me some advice on this ASAP. Many thanks!
tguerrero: Sorry for the late reply. No you will not need to increase the frosting amount as long as the amount of cake batter is the same.