Basic Carrot Cake With Lemon Glaze
 
Prep time
Cook time
Total time
 
This simple recipe skips the pineapple, raisins, and nuts, to avoid common carrot cake aversions. But we've included options for adding raisins and/or nuts, if desired. The bright lemon glaze adds wonderful contrast to this perfectly sweet cake. It's downright addictive!
Author:
Recipe type: Dessert
Cuisine: American
Serves: 1 two-layer cake (14 slices)
Ingredients
Basic Carrot Cake
  • 2½ cups all-purpose flour (see gluten-free option below)
  • 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • ¾ teaspoon baking powder (see leavening note in post above)
  • ¾ teaspoon baking soda
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • ½ teaspoon ground ginger
  • ¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
  • ⅛ teaspoon ground allspice
  • ¾ cup sugar
  • ¾ cup dark brown sugar (can sub light brown sugar)
  • 4 eggs
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1½ cups oil
  • 1 pound carrots, peeled and grated
Lemon Glaze
  • 3 to 5 cups powdered sugar
  • ¼ cup lemon juice, or to taste (see Lemon Note below)
Instructions
Basic Carrot Cake
  1. Preheat your oven to 350°F.
  2. Grease two 8-inch round cake pans and line the bottoms with a round of parchment paper cut to fit. (See below for other pan sizes.)
  3. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda, salt, ginger, nutmeg, and allspice.
  4. In a mixing bowl, beat the sugars, eggs, and vanilla with the whisk attachment for 3 minutes.
  5. Lower the speed and slowly add the oil, while beating. The egg mixture will become thicker as the oil is added. Continue to beat for another 5 minutes.
  6. Gradually mix in the flour mixture. Fold in the carrots.
  7. Scrape the batter into your prepared pans.
  8. Bake for 20 minutes. Rotate the pans and bake for another 5 to 15 minutes, or until the cakes seem firm to the touch and a toothpick inserted in the center of a cake comes out clean.
  9. Cool the cakes on a wire rack.
Lemon Glaze
  1. In a medium bowl, beat the lemon juice and 3 cups powdered sugar on low speed, until smooth.
  2. If the glaze seems too runny, mix in more sugar. If it becomes too thick, mix in little more lemon or water (if it is too tart for your taste).
Cake Assembly
  1. Turn the cakes out onto a plate or cake circle.
  2. Coat the center of one cake with lemon glaze.
  3. Top with the second cake layer, and allow the remaining glaze to coat the top and run down the sides.
Notes
Lemon Note: The original recipe uses fresh-squeezed lemon, but we've used a real lemon squeeze with delicious results. The concentrates are a little bolder in flavor due to lemon oil added.

Loaf Cake and Rectangular Cake Options: Grease three 8x4-inch loaf pans or two 8x-6-inch pans, and line them with parchment paper overhanging on two opposite sides (to easily lift the cakes out). Increase the baking powder to 1 teaspoon, and optionally increase the baking soda to 1 teaspoon (but only if using dark brown sugar). Bake the cakes for 20 minutes, rotate, and bake for 20 to 35 minutes more (we had variation by oven types), or until a toothpick inserted in the center of a cake comes out clean.

Raisin Option: You can stir in 1 cup raisins (dark, golden, or a combination of the two) with the carrots.

Nuts Option: You cn stir in 1 cup chopped walnuts with the carrots.

Gluten-Free Option: My friend René tested this recipe with King Arthur Measure for Measure Gluten-Free Flour and it was "a big hit!"

This recipe is adapted from the The Art of Dessert by Ann Amernick.
Nutrition Information
Serving size: 1 slice Calories: 492 Fat: 24.9g Saturated fat: 3.5g Carbohydrates: 64.7g Sugar: 45.3g Sodium: 194mg Fiber: 1.5g Protein: 4.2g
Recipe by Go Dairy Free at https://www.godairyfree.org/recipes/basic-carrot-cake-lemon-glaze