This perfectly moist carrot cake is topped with a mouthwatering cream cheese frosting and only takes minutes to whip up and would make a great addition to your Easter dinner!

My mom has been making this carrot cake for as long as I can remember! She’s won many hearts over with this cake! 😉 Which brings back a great memory that I have to share. Haha!! I met my husband in 2004, back when he was still a college kid at Michigan Tech (Go Huskies!). My mom is an extremely nurturing and welcoming person and anyone who steps foot into my parents house immediately feels like they belong. But raising FOUR strong-willed daughters, it’s not to say we didn’t make her nervous a few times with some of our guests we brought home. LOL! Anyways, every single time my husband came to see me, my mom had a freshly baked cake waiting for him. No lie. EVERY time! A bachelor, college student, living alone – I think he was more excited for those cakes than he was to see me. 😉 Kidding! But he still talks about those days often and still asks my mom where his cake is when we go visit. 

Back to carrot cake. 🙂 It’s made in a 9×13 as a sheet cake which I prefer because I’m honestly not a fan of making layer cakes. I’ll let you in on a little secret. When baking, I lack patience, I’m lazy-ish and look for the easy way out and I don’t like spending all the time it takes to pretty it up. I’m a dump-and-slather-on-the-frosting kinda girl! So there, don’t count on seeing any pretty, floraly, layered cakes on my page. 😉 I’m the complete opposite with cooking though! Spending hours perfecting a dish doesn’t bother me in the slightest.

This easy carrot cake is AMAZING! The texture is so tender and moist, every bite will just melt in your mouth!! The cinnamon, clove and nutmeg balance each other out perfectly! I’ve had so many tasteless, bland carrot cakes and this is most definitely not one of them. I think I’ve mentioned before how some textures weird me out in certain foods 😉 hence why this cake doesn’t have any nuts or raisins. Feel free to add some though! Add half a cup of either one you prefer and add them when you add the shredded carrots.

Hope you guys make this cake for Easter and love it as much as our family does!  

Yield: 12-15 servings

INGREDIENTS

• 2 cups granulated sugar
• 1 1/3 cup vegetable oil 
• 4 eggs 
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoons nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon ground clove
• 2 cups flour
• 3 cups grated carrots

Cream Cheese Frosting

• 8 oz. cream cheese, softened 
• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 2 1/2 half cups powdered sugar 
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Preheat the oven to 350F. Spray a 9×13 pan with nonstick spray and set aside. 
2. In the bowl of your stand mixer, add sugar, vegetable oil, eggs and vanilla. Mix on medium speed until smooth, 1 minute. Add in baking soda, cinnamon, salt, nutmeg and ground clove and continue to mix for 30 seconds, scraping down the sides. Add in the flour and mix until just combined.
3. Add in the carrots and stir with a spatula until evenly incorporated. 
4. Pour batter evenly into the prepared pan. Bake for 38-45 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Set aside to cool completely.

Cream Cheese Frosting

1. In the bowl of your stand mixer, add the cream cheese and butter and mix on medium speed until well combined. Add the powdered sugar and mix on low for 1 minute then adjust to medium speed until the frosting is light and fluffy, 2-3 minutes, scraping the sides to make sure there’s no clumps.
2. Spread frosting on top of the cooled cake.