Moist and fluffy Carrot cake with cream cheese frosting! Easter time and the long-awaited spring is practically around the corner! And for me, that means that I’m also granting spring admission again in my daily cooking and baking. One of my favorite recipes for this time of year is a super moist cake with hazelnuts, carrots, and a fresh cream cheese frosting. We love this delicious carrot cake not just at Easter time but all year round but
carrots and Easter just go hand in hand for me. Adding a little Pumpkin Spice also makes this moist carrot cake a really great recipe in the fall. By the way, you can also find easy instructions for making homemade Pumpkin Spice on my blog!
Moist & Fluffy Carrot cake with cream cheese frosting and hazelnut brittle
For the carrot cake, you need flour, hazelnuts, carrots, sugar, eggs, and butter, as well as cream cheese and powdered sugar. The remaining ingredients such as cinnamon or a bit of baking powder you usually have in the house anyway. As always, you can find a detailed list of all the ingredients a little further down the page, just like the simple step-by-step instructions.
For the moist carrot cake with cream cheese topping, I prefer to use whole hazelnuts and roast them before I grind them myself at home. I enjoy this and love the preparation, however, there is nothing at all wrong with buying ground hazelnuts right
away and skipping this step. I grate the carrots extra fine for the cake. The finer the carrots are grated, the juicier the cake will be. Whether you grate the carrots with a food processor or on a hand grater doesn’t really matter, I use my trusty square grater in most cases and grate the carrots on the smallest grater.
This is the best Carrot Cake ever!
Chocolate lovers can also add a few dark chocolate drops to the sponge. Since the cake is already sweetened with sugar and especially brown sugar, I prefer not to use milk chocolate because it is very sweet. Dark chocolate is therefore perfect for this recipe, however, I often go without the chocolate drops altogether as the cake tastes great without them too. For the cream cheese frosting, I use cream cheese, powdered sugar, butter, and some vanilla extract. The frosting for this delicious “spring cake” can be a little more generous, because it fits perfectly to the cake and gives the whole thing an extra touch of freshness. Decorate the delicious carrot cake with hazelnuts, brittle, or pistachios.
I hope you enjoy reading, strolling through, and trying out my cooking and baking recipes!
Equipment
- 1 large bowl
- 1 blender or food processor
- 1 vegetable slicer / grater
- 1 peeler
- 1 knife
- 1 bowl
- 1 scale
- 1 pan 22cm-26cm
Ingredients
- 200 g flour or spelt flour
- 150 g ground hazelnuts or whole roasted nuts
- 20 g cornflour or cornstarch
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 130 sugar or half mixed with cane sugar
- 1 tbsp vanilla sugar
- 200 g carrots finely grated
- 4 eggs
- 1 tsp cinnamon or pumpkin spice (blog recipe)
- 1 pinch salt
- 1 pinch of nutmeg
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 tsp grated lemon peel
- 200 g butter
- 100 g dark chocolate who likes
Cream cheese frosting
- 300 g cream cheese
- 250 g powdered sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 80 g butter soft
DECO
- 2 tbsp hazelnut brittle chocolate shavings, pistachios, decoration
Instructions
- Prepare all ingredients, weigh and measure if necessary. Finely grate the carrots. Mix together the flour, cornstarch and baking powder.
- Toast the whole hazelnuts in a pan without oil or other fat for a few minutes. Then place the hazelnuts on a dry cloth and carefully rub off the shell with the help of the cloth. Finely grind the roasted and peeled hazelnuts in a blender.
- Mix the butter and cane sugar together for a few minutes until creamy. Then add eggs, hazelnuts, spices and the flour mixture to the mixture in small portions. Finally, fold in the vanilla extract.
- Then fold the grated carrots into the batter. At this point, you can also add the chocolate drops to the batter if you would like to use some.
- Put the dough into a greased 22cm springform pan and bake in a preheated ove at 170 degrees for about 50 minutes Let the cake cool completely before spreading the cream cheese frosting on the cake.
Cream Cheese Frosting
- Mix the powdered sugar, softened butter, cream cheese and vanilla extract unti you have a fluffy cream.
- Either pipe the cream onto the cake with a piping bag or spread it with a spatula.
- Then decorate with hazelnuts, chocolate shavings or pistachios.
