I can take absolutely zero credit for this cake. It’s my cousin’s Mother-in-Law’s recipe and after watching me drool over the cake for a year she was kind enough to share it with me. It is the ultimate carrot cake. It’s so moist, so full of flavor, and just made up of the perfect texture. I couldn’t believe how simple it was when she gave me the recipe.
It’s always the family recipes that are the best though. You can look a recipe up in a cookbook, and there can be 47 different ingredients, but it’ll lack flavor somehow. That or it’ll come out burnt on the edges and soupy still inside. Not that I’m saying this has happened to me. Sigh.
First up, get everything ready to go because then it’ll whip up in minutes.
Here’s everything you need for the cake: white sugar, eggs, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, salt, vegetable oil, flour, 3 cups of grated carrots, and walnuts (optional). For the carrots, peel them first, then grate them. I used my food processor to make it nice and quick, but you can just use any old cheese grater.
Beat together the sugar and the oil.
Beat in the eggs, one at a time.
Looks good.
Whisk together the remaining dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, salt).
Stir the dry ingredients into the sugar mixture using a wooden spoon. Now, I’m sure you could do this in your mixer on the stir setting, but this is Mama Dorosch’s recipe and if she says to stir it with a spoon, I’m damn well going to stir it with a spoon.
Perfect!
Fold in the carrots and walnuts if you’re using them.
Alright, batter’s finished! See, told you it was ridiculously easy.
Pour the batter into a very well greased and floured pan. Tradition says to use a bundt or tube pan. I went with a tube pan, then shook things up by cutting the finished cake in half to layer it.
Throw the cake into the oven at 360ºF. You’re reading that right, I said 360ºF. Not 350. Not 375. 360ºF. For some reason I really, REALLY love this. Now walk away for about an hour. Not too far away though, because you should start checking it around 45 minutes. Here’s the finished cake. Make sure you let it cool completely before you ice it.
Ok, while the cake is cooking make the icing. I’ve got to be honest here…I doubled Mama Dorosch’s icing recipe. It’s just that I have this thing for cream cheese icing. I can’t get enough of it. Plus, I figured that if I had lots of leftovers I’d just find another use for it. I’ve got to say though, I didn’t have much left at all, and I don’t think that I over did it on the cake. That said, if you’re not layering the cake, and you don’t like a lot of icing, you’re probably fine halving it back to the original quantity.
For the icing all you need is cream cheese, butter, vanilla, and icing sugar.
Beat together the well softened butter, cream cheese, and vanilla until soft and fluffy.
Beat in the icing sugar, ⅓ at a time, until completely combined and the icing is nice and smooth. Cover with plastic wrap until the cake is cool enough to ice. If making ahead of time, store in the fridge.
Now, you can just frost the outside of the cake, but me, as stated before, I like lots of icing. So, if you’re like me go ahead and cut that cake in half.
Slap on a nice amount of icing. I want to say this was about ½”, maybe ¾”.
Throw the top of the cake back on. Don’t worry about that icing popping out the side.
Now dirty ice the cake. That’s just a quick, thin layer that doesn’t need to look pretty. It traps all the crumbs for you so they don’t work themselves out in the finished icing. Once that’s on, just through the rest of the icing on however you want. Me, I didn’t want to spend forever smoothing it out, so I went for the rustic wavy look. There’s nothing wrong with that.
Have I convinced you yet? Get going, make this cake, and while you’re eating it say a silent thank you to Mama Dorosch. I will be in 2.934 seconds when I have a slice for breakfast. There’s nothing wrong with that either, and you’ll never convince me otherwise!
Ok, one more picture, because I took a great one of a slice yesterday!
EDIT: I’ve got one more quick note to make. I got a bit of a back story on the cake yesterday. Apparently Mama Dorosch originally got the recipe from a write-up in the Toronto Star years ago. They had gotten their hands on the carrot cake recipe from the Waldorf Astoria in New York City. So, there you have it. However, the way I see things, if I’m ever at the Waldorf Astoria I’ll be eating Mama Dorosch’s cake 😉
EDIT 2: Photo proof that this is a great carrot cake! Here’s Oliver and I after taking the “Best Tasting Carrot Cake” award at this summer’s Carrot Fest (yes, I live in a town that has this, and I love it).Yes, the photo is terrible, but it’s all the proof I’ve got. And yes, Oliver couldn’t care less that the cake he helped his mother bake won something, he just wanted the last 3 raisins from the bottom of the box. No, there are no raisins in the cake. Gross. I hate raisins.
Here’s the printable:
Mama Dorosch’s Carrot Cake
Ingredients
Cake
- 1½ cups granulated sugar
- 1½ cups oil
- 4 eggs
- 2 cups flour
- 2 tsp baking soda
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 2 tsp cinnamon
- ¼ tsp salt
- 3 cups grated carrots, packed
- ¾ cup walnuts (optional)
Icing (split in half if not layering and you aren't an icing freak)
- 16oz cream cheese (2 bars), well softened
- 8 tbsp (½ cup) butter, well softened
- 2 lb icing sugar
- 4 tsp vanilla
Instructions
Cake
- Pre-heat the oven to 360ºF with a rack in the middle position. Liberally grease and flour a bundt or tube pan.
- In a large bowl, beat together the sugar and oil. Beat in the eggs, one at a time.
- In a second, medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt.
- Add the flour mixture to the sugar mix and mix in with a wooden spoon until well incorporated.
- Fold in the carrots and walnuts (if using).
- Pour into prepared pan and bake for 45 to 60 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Remove to a wire rack to cool completely before icing.
Icing
- In a large bowl, beat together the cream cheese, butter, and vanilla until light and fluffy.
- Gradually beat in the icing sugar until well blended.
Pedro
Hi, your cake looks very good, but how many cups of flour do you use ?
Katrina
So sorry about that Pedro, 2 cups flour!
Rikki
Mmmm this looks so good! And that is one beautiful frosting job! [:
Katrina
Thanks Rikki! If only you knew the truth. I started off trying to make it nice and smooth and professional looking, but after 2 minutes I gave up, slapped it on, and just swirled it around to make it look messy, lol
lynn yap
Hi , your carrot cake looks amazing! And many thanks for sharing the recipe. However, could you please let me know how much flour to use? I usually bake with my 9-inch round pan, so I would appreciate very much if you could tell me the amount of flour to use.
Thank you and please keep baking!
Sincerely,
Lynn
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Katrina
Sorry Lynn, 2 cups flour. Also, using 9″ round cake pans, just make sure to split the batter into 2 pans because there’s a lot of rise. Love seeing that you’re from Kuala Lumpur! It blows my mind thinking that people are seeing my blog from so far away 🙂 Thanks!
lynn yap
Thanks lots, Katrina!
Moanna
I will definitely make this for my best friend’s birthday! I wonder how many cups of flour does the cake needs though, It is not listed the recipe.
Katrina
Sorry, 2 cups flour 🙂
miskat
this looks really tasty! plus, extremely simple.
but you’ve forgotten to write the amount of flour in the recipe… 🙁 which happens to be really sad, as I’m willing to try this cake myslef!
Katrina
Sorry all, 2 cups flour!
Russell at Chasing Delicious
I love carrot cakes. I haven’t had one in a while though. I am definitely giving this a try soon.
telesma
This is the recipe my grandmother used and the one I’ve been making for a quarter of a century. It was originally a Pillsbury Bake Off winner.
Katrina
Love it! Maybe the Waldorf Astoria took it from the Pillsbury bake-off too, wouldn’t that be too funny!
Michelle
this cake looks marvelous… but my question is this ….. Do i have to use a bunt cake pan … can i use regular round cke pans instead?
Katrina
Round cake pans will work like a charm, just decrease the baking time (keep your eye on them in the oven) 🙂
carole segelstrom
Regarding the frosting recipe: I think there is a typo.
You said 8T (1/4 cup) Butter.
There are 16T in one cup.
8T is 1/2 cup. So, should it read 4T (1/4 cup) or 8T (1/2 cup)?
Thanks very much, Carole S.
Katrina
Absolutely right Carole! Thank you for letting me know when you noticed 🙂
It’s 8 tablespoons (1/2 cup).
Thanks again!
N
What kind of flour did you use? All Purpose or Cake Flour?
Katrina
Hey N, it’s all-purpose flour. Any recipe where I don’t say differently (just list flour), it’s always all-purpose flour. When you see just “sugar” it’s always white granulated. I should stop assuming that everyone’s a mind reader and include full ingredient names though. Sorry for that 🙂
Jacob and Chastity
This cake is delicious. The actual cake is not sweet for those who have a big sweet tooth. For those who like it sweet, the icing should help in that department and it truly does not need any extra sugar. My wife and I used a Martha Stewart Food Chopper to chop the baby carrots (sweeter and fits easy into the chopper) and walnuts. I’m glad we didn’t spend a lot of time making shavings and the consistency is much better chopped in my opinion. We pulled the cake out at 45 minutes (a little too soon) and a small section of the cake stuck to the pan. Because it stuck we couldn’t do the cool 2 layers of icing, but the cake still turned out great. Thanks for the recipe!
Katrina
Glad to hear that you guys liked it as much as we do! The grating is quick for me because I do it in the food processor (it came with this good grating blade, my savior for carrot cake and mac and cheese!). AWESOME suggestion on chopping it up though, I never even thought of that.
Erik
Just made this cake today and it turned out perfectly. I’d never actually made a cake prior to using this recipe, and your instructions w/ pictures made it very easy. Thanks!
Katrina
Yay! Glad that you liked it. It’s been the easiest cake I think I’ve ever made that’s tasted like something you would buy at a stellar bakery.
Selma
I just made the cake 🙂 It tournd out perfectly! Eventhough I´m from germany, so that i got some troubles with messuring. But your recepie turned out great!! Thanks for sharing!
Katrina
I’m so glad that you liked it! Sorry about the trouble with measuring, but I’m so glad it turned out for you 🙂
Mirla
Hi Katrina,
I would like to know what kind of vegetable oil you use.
Thanks and greetings from Holland
Katrina
Hi Mirla,
In Canada, it’s just sold as “vegetable oil”. Do you have canola oil in Holland? That would work find as a substitution. I tried to google and saw “cooking oil” come up a lot for your area, and from what I can see that’s basically our version of vegetable oil, so that would work fine as well. Hope you like the carrot cake, it really is just great! And Hi from Canada!
Mirla
Hallo Katrina,
The cake was awesome!! I baked it with a mild olive oil (in dutch: milde olijf olie) last tuesday and it really tasted great. It didn’t have an after taste.
I’ll see if we have here “cooking oil”. I haven’t heard of it, but you never now. Thanks for this great recipe. Groetjes uit Nederland (greetings from Holland)
Babette
My husband has been talking about his sister’s carrot cake for 23 years so, of course, I’ve been intimidated and didn’t want to make one for him. On his last birthday, he specifically asked for a carrot cake. I made this Mama Dorosh’s for him and now I’M the carrot cake queen! He, literally, ate the whole cake by himself (it took him a couple of days). So thank you, it was delicious and is the only carrot cake I’ll ever make.
Kodikodak
A very late message, I just found out about your recipe and loved the cake. However, the center of it smelled strongly of ammonia. Like VERY STRONGLY. Once it cooled down and on the next day, the smell was still there, but the cake was very much edible and extremely good.
I have looked up online reasons for that but couldn’t find anything, do you have any knowledge about why that would happen ? I’m in no way blaming your recipe ! I believe it might have been my baking soda (some people have said), but you might know more about this ?
Katrina
Ok, I’ve never experienced this with a recipe. What’s hilarious is that I literally just took this cake out of the oven (it’s the kids favourite and they wanted it for dessert tonight). It’s cooling for me as I type, so when we dig into it tonight I’ll make a point of asking the kids and the husband to get their noses in there and see.
Did you use walnuts in it? Sometimes I find they can smell “off” when they’re on the verge of going bad, but you would probably notice the taste too if that was the issue. I’m so curious about this now – I’ll see what I can find on google too 🙂 I’m glad you liked it, but feel terrible that it smelled like that!
Stephanie Gin
Hi there! I know this is such a late message haha but I’ve been trying to find the BEST carrot cake recipe and reddit sent me here! I wanted to use this recipe to make carrot cake cupcakes, do you think it’ll work the same or anything I need to change like baking time? Still planning on making it as a whole cake as well and I’m so excited! 🙂
Katrina
Hey Stephanie – no such thing as a late message 🙂 Keep the recipe as is, but the baking time will be significantly less for cupcakes. I haven’t made it as cupcakes, so I don’t know exactly, but I’d probably start peaking at them between 15 and 20 minutes into baking 🙂 Enjoy!!
Karen Yim
Hi! I’ve just seen this recipe and was wondering, how long would it roughly take for it in a round pan? Thanks!!
Katrina
Hi Karen! I would split it into two round pans if you have them. You’ll probably be around 40 minutes bake time 🙂
Karen Yim
Hi Katrina! Thank you for replying! If I don’t have two round pans, is it okay to cook them separately and then put them on top of each other?
Katrina
Absolutly 🙂
Katrina
I should have added – I think if you tried to cook the entire recipe in a single shot in 1 pan, the edges would burn before the center was finished cooking. I hope you love the cake!!
Karen Yim
Thank you so much! Look forward to making it!! 🙂
Karen Yim
Oh I see! It’ll be my first time making it, I’m making it today for my boyfriends birthday tomorrow ^^
Liyana
Hello! Very excited to bake this for my fiancé’s birthday this weekend. I was wondering if the eggs should be at room temp for the batter or if straight from the fridge is ok?
Monica
THIS IS AN AMAZING RECIPE! Now I want to try more cake recipes from this site.
I made it for my family, used 2, 6 inches pan (500g each) and the rest of the batter I made 5 mini bundt cakes. I didn’t have walnuts so I did not used it. I used a different Icing recipe (basically added lemon and lemon zest instead of vanilla)
My notes: 1. stick to baking them in pans instead of mini bundts. 2. make the cake ahead, it tastes better the day after (which i think its always the case in carrot, dates, or banana cakes).
My first impression was that it could use more spice, like adding nutmeg and so. But honestly, It’s not necessary. Lets not fix what’s not broken. The cake cuts really nice, and it almost melts in your mouth.
Katrina
Monica, just wanted to say that you made my day! I’m glad you love the cake as much as we all do 🙂
Anonymous
This recipe has been a family favorite for years! Please know that you are a part of all of our celebrations. Love from Washington DC!
Anonymous
Hi! How long should i bake this in an 8″ round pan?