This Carrot Bundt Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting is bursting with flavorful from all of your favorite spices, moist as ever with melted butter, vegetable oil, and applesauce, and so very sweet with two types of sugar and smooth cream cheese frosting! This is so easy to make, bake, and decorate! This is the perfect treat to bring in the spring season, but it's also a simple and reliable bake all year around!
Carrot Cake Ingredients
Flour: All purpose flour is perfect for this cake! It provides structure while still allowing for a moist, soft texture! No need for cake flour in this recipe!
Baking Soda and Baking Powder: These two leavening agents work together to provide that light, fluffy cake texture. Though these ingredients normally give rise to bakes, this bundt actually doesn't rise too much, which might be surprising when you see it in the oven!
Salt, Cinnamon, Nutmeg, and Ground Ginger: These lovely ingredients are the heart of this recipe. These work together for that classic carrot cake flavor that you know and love!
Vegetable Oil, Unsalted Butter, and Unsweetened Applesauce: Vegetable oil and butter are the fats in this recipe. They provide structure and contribute to the immense moisture. This cake's soft and tender texture are a result of using both butter and oil. The applesauce adds to moisture without making the cake greasy!
Eggs: Using four whole eggs is the key to this recipe's success. Please use room temperature eggs, as cold eggs will shock the batter and affect how your cake bakes!
Light Brown Sugar and Granulated Sugar: Granulated sugar adds sweetness while light brown sugar adds moisture, flavor, and sweetness. It may look like quite a bit of sugar in this recipe in comparison to other cake recipes, but do not adjust it because doing so will alter the texture and structure of the cake!
Vanilla Extract: Vanilla extract rounds out the flavor in baked goods! Don't skip this ingredient!
Grated Carrots: What's carrot cake without carrots? Using grated carrots in this recipe will create a lighter, softer texture, but if you chop up some matchstick carrots, you can get close to the classic texture!
Making Carrot Bundt Cake
- Whisk dry ingredients together
- Whisk wet ingredients together
- Combine wet and dry ingredients
- Fold grated carrots into the batter
- Bake
- Prepare cream cheese frosting
- Frost
Baking Tips
When spraying your pan, do so generously. One of the most disappointing feelings is having a cake break when removing it from the pan. Bundt cakes are notoriously tricky to remove, so spray the pan much more than you might for another treat! Trust me on this!
To ensure carrot cake success, do not overmix your ingredients. I am an advocate for mixing until your ingredients are just combined. Overmixing leads to dry, dense cake. This carrot cake is soft, light, tender, and moist. Do not ruin that gorgeous texture by mixing too long! It's such a simple fix!
Bundt cakes take longer to bake than normal cakes do! You'll want to keep your eye on it. Underbaking this cake leads to dense, wet, and gooey cake. Overbaking leads to dry, tough cake! This cake is done when the top of the bundt looks dry, a toothpick inserted into the center comes out with a few moist crumbs, and the top springs back when poked! If the top looks to be darkening before the center of the cake is finished baking, cover the pan with aluminum foil to prevent browning!
Cream Cheese Frosting
I'm a firm believer that carrot cake is not carrot cake without cream cheese frosting... which is why this is a carrot bundt cake with cream cheese frosting. This frosting is light, fluffy, and so dang velvety.
I use both cold cream cheese and cold butter and beat in my stand mixer. If you are using a hand mixer, using room temperature will make whipping much easier! I know it's a bit uncommon to use cold ingredients in frosting, but it will become smooth and creamy!
The trick to this frosting is to whip it on high speed for 5 minutes. I know... 5 whole minutes. This transforms your frosting from thick, yellow-looking frosting to that creamy, bright white frosting!
Other Recipes
Print Carrot Bundt Cake With Cream Cheese Frosting
- Prep Time: 20 minutes
- Cooling Time: 30 minutes: Decorating Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 1 hour
- Total Time: 2 hours
- Yield: 1, 10 inch bundt cake 1x
- Category: Spring, Carrot Cake, Bundt Cake
- Cuisine: American
Description
This Carrot Bundt Cake is bursting with flavorful from all of your favorite spices, moist as ever with melted butter, vegetable oil, and applesauce, and so very sweet with two types of sugar and smooth cream cheese frosting! This is so easy to make, bake, and decorate!
Ingredients
For the Cake
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 2 teaspoons cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon nutmeg
- ¼ teaspoon ground ginger
- ⅔ cup vegetable oil
- ½ cup unsalted butter, melted
- ½ cup unsweetened apple sauce
- 4 large eggs, room temperature
- 1 cup light brown sugar, packed
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 2 ½ cups finely grated carrots
- Optional: 1 cup chopped walnuts or pecans
For the Frosting
- 4 oz cream cheese
- ½ cup unsalted butter
- 3 cups powdered sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ½ tablespoon heavy whipping cream
Instructions
For the Cake
- Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Heavily spray a 10 inch bundt pan with cooking oil. This is incredibly important to ensure the cake comes out cleanly.
- In a medium bowl, whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and ground ginger together.
- In a large bowl, whisk vegetable oil, melted butter, apple sauce, room temperature eggs, light brown sugar, granulated sugar, and vanilla extract.
- Add dry ingredients to the wet, whisking until just combined. Do not overmix. Fold in grated carrots, and scrape down the sides of the bowl. Fold in nuts if desired.
- Transfer batter to prepared pan. Bake for 45-60 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean and the cake springs back when poked.
- Allow the cake to cool in the pan for at least 30 minutes before flipping over onto a wire rack to continue cooling.
For the Frosting
- In the bowl of a stand mixer (preferred) or in a large bowl with a hand mixer, beat butter and cream cheese together on medium speed until smooth. The butter and cream cheese do not need to be at room temperature if using a stand mixer.
- Slowly add powdered sugar into the butter and cream cheese mixture. Continue beating until fully combined.
- Add vanilla extract and heavy whipping cream to the frosting. Beat on high speed for 5 minutes. Frosting will become bright white, smooth, fluffy, and creamy.
- Frost cooled cake as desired and top with pecans or walnuts if desired. Store in the fridge for up to 1 week.
Keywords: Carrot Cake, Carrot Bundt, Moist Cake, Bundt Cake, Cream Cheese Frosting
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