Carrot Cake Recipe

Posted by Cornel Schalkwyk on February 19, 2021

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If healthy is what you are looking for, a carrot cake is a great choice, and with this recipe you get two of your five a day! Yes, you have sugar and carbs to consider as well, but it’s all worth it!

Carrot cake ingredients

Carrot is the obvious ingredient, but this recipe also includes bananas. So next time when you are left with some overripe bananas, instead of a banana bread, use them for this carrot cake recipe.

This is a super easy recipe to make, and you can even mix it by hand if you do not have an electric stand mixer. It is a moist sponge full of flavour, which will impress your guests every time you make it.

Useful tips:

Mash your bananas just before you make your batter, otherwise the pulp will change colour if left exposed to air.

Mashed bananas

Use the coarse setting to grate your carrots. Although the pieces might look quite big, they will soften and be ‘absorbed’ in your sponge when baked. Coarsely grated carrots result in the perfect sponge texture for this recipe.
Buy pre-chopped nuts from your local shop to save yourself a lot of hassle!

Recipe:

Prep time: 20 minutes

Cooking time: 45 minutes

Servings: 8” cake, with two layers (12 – 16 servings)

Author: Cornel Schalkwyk

Equipment:

Ingredients:

230g granulated sugar (approx. 1 cup)
3 large eggs
250ml oil
245g plain flour (approx. 1½ cups)
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
A pinch of salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
90g coarsely grated carrots (approx. 1 small carrot / 1 cup grated)
260g banana pulp (approx. 2 - 3 bananas / 1 cup)
60g chopped hazelnuts (approx. ½ cup, optional)

Watch the video here for a demonstration on how to make this cake.

Topping:

Cream cheese frosting is the obvious choice for a carrot cake, but consistency is often a problem especially if you want to do intricate buttercream piping for your cake decoration. So, I often use plain vanilla buttercream, or white chocolate ganache / buttercream which goes really well with the taste of carrot cake.
Vanilla buttercream. You can add 2 - 3 tsp of water to this recipe if you are not planning on piping flowers, and simply want to cover your cake.

Carrot cake slice

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 160°C fan assisted (320°F), or 170°C (338°F) for a conventional oven.
Line and grease two round 8” cake tins.
Grate the carrots and mash the bananas with a fork and set aside.

Grated carrots

If required, chop the nuts by hand or using a food processor, and set aside.
Weigh your sugar and mix with the eggs and oil in a mixing bowl on medium setting.

Wet ingredients

Weigh and sift the flour into the egg mixture and add the cinnamon and other dry ingredient. Mix on medium speed for roughly 20 – 30 seconds using a whisk attachment on your stand mixer.

Carrot cake ingredients

Scrape down the sides of your mixing bowl and add the carrots, banana pulp and chopped hazelnuts. Mix on medium speed for another 20 – 30 second until combined.
Divide the batter into the cake tins.

Batter in cake tins

Bake for 45 - 50 minutes, until a cake tester or cocktail stick comes out clean when inserted in the centre of the cake.
Let them cool for a few minutes in the cake tins before taking them out on a cooling rack.
Once completely cooled, you can frost & decorate your cake. See this video for how I decorate a carrot cake as a flower basket.

Notes:

Start checking your cakes after 40 minutes in the oven. If you move the tins and the middle wobbles, the cakes are not ready, and you can check again after 3 – 5 minutes. When the middle doesn’t wobble you can use a cake tester to test the cake.
If you have a nut allergy, simply remove the nuts from the recipe. The cake is still delicious without the nuts.
You can freeze banana pulp for up to 3 months if you have some ripe bananas you would like to use for this recipe at a later date.
We’ve used sunflower oil in this recipe. A different type of oil may affect the texture and/or taste of the cake.
Once frosted / covered, the cake will last for a week in cool room temperature. No need to keep the cake in the fridge unless you’ve used cream cheese frosting.
You can freeze your cakes (unfrosted) in freezer bags for up to 2 months. Thaw in the fridge overnight and bring back to room temperature before frosting and consuming the cakes.