Irresistible Carrot Cake With Brown Butter Cream Cheese Frosting

There are a few things in life that just cannot be denied. This is one of them! 🙂

Kicking off the beginning of October with one of my all time favourite recipes 🙂 Absolutely amazing carrot cake with one of the best frostings you will ever taste!

My birthday is next week so I’ve decided to share all of my favourite, extra delicious recipes through out the month so stay tuned 😉

Let’s talk carrot cake. This is one of those cakes that you don’t know you will like until you try it. Carrot cake has become one of my family’s favourite cakes ever since I introduced it to them a couple of years ago. Before that they always though ‘carrot cake!? Blech that’s weird!’ 🙂 I sure proved them wrong! 🙂

This recipe is one of the most popular recipes I’ve seen featured on many sites around the web. It’s a recipe from America’s Test Kitchen so I just knew I had to try it and I’m glad I did! 🙂

The crumb is so moist and soft that it pretty much melts in your mouth. The recipe is also very simple to make using basic ingredients that guarantee fabulous results.

I chose to pair this cake with a delicious brown butter version of my favourite cream cheese frosting recipe. I wanted to bring out that beautiful nutty flavour that browned butter gives and it was a great choice because it matched very well with the cake.

You can however use regular cream cheese frosting and that will work just as well.

I know that you guys will LOVE this cake as soon as you try it! 🙂 Seriously it’s a must 😉

You can easily half the recipe and make one beautiful round or square cake topped with almonds like I did here. Super delicious 🙂

Irresistible Carrot Cake With Brown Butter Cream Cheese Frosting

Makes 1 layered 8 or 9 inch cake, 24 cupcakes or a 9 x 13 inch cake

Ingredients

• 2 1/2 cups (312gms) all purpose flour
• 1 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon powder
• 1 1/2 cups (300gms) white sugar
• 1/2 cup (100gms) soft brown sugar
• 1 1/2 cup (375mls) oil (I like to use 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce in place of 1/2 cup oil)
• 4 eggs
• 3 cups finely shredded peeled carrots
  Optional: 1 teaspoon ginger powder, 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg, 1/8 teaspoon cloves

Frosting

• 1 cup (200 gms) butter
• 1 1/2 cups (12 oz) cream cheese
• 4 cups icing sugar
• 3/4 – 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180C. Grease and flour 2 or 3 round 8 or 9 inch cake tins.
2. In bowl, whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, salt and any other spices of choice; ginger, cloves, nutmeg.
3. In large bowl, whisk eggs and both sugars until well combined. Drizzle in oil and whisk until paled in colour and mixed well, about 45 seconds to 1 minute.
4. Stir in flour mix and whisk until just combined. Stir in shredded carrots until combined.
5. Divide batter between cake tins and bake for about 30 minutes until cooked through.
6. Cool cake and frost.

For frosting:

1. In a medium light coloured saucepan heat the butter over medium heat while stirring constantly with a wooden spoon. Cook the butter, make sure you keep stirring, scraping the bottom of the pan to prevent burning, until you see small specks of butter turning brown and a nutty smell is being released.
2. As soon as this stage has been reached, take the browned butter off the heat and pour into a bowl to stop it from continuing to cook. Leave it to cool slightly then place in the fridge to cool completely and solidify again, about half an hour.
3. Once it has become solid again, whisk the browned butter and cream cheese together for 4 – 5 minutes until fluffy and well combined.
4. Whisk in icing sugar one cup at a time, whisking between each addition. Add vanilla to taste.