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Best Carrot Cake With Cream Cheese Frosting (No Pineapple)

This carrot cake is moist, flavorful, and topped with a rich cream cheese frosting. It's the perfect dessert for any occasion, and it's made without pineapple!
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Prep Time 30 minutes
Cook Time 35 minutes
Total Time 1 hour 5 minutes
Servings: 12 slices
Course: Dessert
Cuisine: American
Calories: 450
Ingredients Method Notes

Ingredients
  

Cake
  • 1 1/2 c cane sugar
  • 3 large eggs
  • 1 c buttermilk
  • 1 c vegetable oil
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 2 1/4 c all purpose flour
  • 1 tsp kosher salt
  • 2 tsp cinnamon
  • 1/4 tsp nutmeg
  • 1/4 tsp ginger
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1/2 c walnuts, chopped
  • 3 c finely grated carrots (this is about 5 medium sized carrots and about 9-10 oz total)
Frosting
  • 1 c butter
  • 2 sticks cream cheese, (16 ounces total)
  • 4 c powdered sugar, sifted
  • pinch kosher salt
  • 1/2 tsp vanilla
  • splash heavy cream

Method
 

  1. Preheat oven to 350
  2. Beat sugar and eggs until thickened. Mix in buttermilk and vanilla. Drizzle in oil on low speed.
  3. Sift dry ingredients, add walnuts. Add dry to wet and mix until almost combined. Mix in carrots.
  4. Prepare two 8" cake pans, spray with cooking spray and add parchment paper.
  5. Fill each pan with batter.
  6. Bake for 35 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
  7. Cool on a wire rack for 2 hours (or until completely cooled).
  8. Beat butter until fluffy, stir in cream cheese and vanilla. Sift in powdered sugar and heavy cream, stir until combined.
  9. Cut each cake in half leaving you with 4 layers (optional).
  10. Stack cake layers with frosting. Frost the rest of the cake.
  11. Optionally, decorate the outside of the cake with chopped walnuts.

Notes

Refrigerating the cake before cutting it into layers helps to prevent crumbling.