"Simple" Carrot Cake Recipe - The Deglutenizer (2024)

Time to make something to cheer up a friend. A lady at work was parked at the bank next door, and some q-tip backed into the side of her car and left a huge dent while pulling out of the handicapped parking space. Now this friend from work loves that car. She would kill for her dogs and this car. She actually didn’t even make it in to work the next day because she was taking care of the car. So she could use a little cheering up, and carrot cake is one of her favorite things. And since I’m making this carrot cake for her anyway, I thought I’d bust out my camera and turn it into a blog post to kill two birds with one stone.

Now you’ll see it’s called a “simple” carrot cake, and if you’ve ever read a carrot cake recipe, you’d think that’s probably a lie. Well it is and it isn’t. It’s still baking, which is a somewhat complex process. But a classic carrot cake recipe calls for grating a bunch of carrots, and I personally can’t think of an easier way to include part of a finger in a recipe than by grating carrots. So we’re going to cheat. We’re going to use a blender (or food processor, whatever you have) to do the hard parts for us. Chopped nuts? Nah, processed nuts. Grated carrots? Nope, blended like a smoothie with the rest of the wet ingredients.

So with my genius (or madness) explained, let’s dive into the actual recipe.

Ingredients:

8 large carrots
1 c. chopped pecans or walnuts
1 c. gluten-free all-purpose flour
¼ c. coconut flour
¾ c. rice flour
1 tsp. baking soda
¾ tsp. salt
1 tsp. ground ginger
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
¼ tsp. ground cloves
¼ tsp. ground nutmeg
½ c. vegetable, canola, or light olive oil
¾ c. buttermilk
¾ c. unsweetened applesauce
1 ½ tsp. vanilla extract
1 ½ c. packed brown sugar
OR
1 c. packed brown sugar plus ½ c. molasses
3 eggs

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375°. Simmer water in large pot. Trim ends off carrots. If outsides are dark or stringy, wash and scrub with brush or wipe roughly with paper towels to remove outer imperfections. Cut into large sticks to reduce cook time necessary to soften carrots. Drop carrots into simmering water and cover with lid. Watch for boil-overs.
2. While carrots cook, prepare pans for baking. Trim two pieces of parchment paper to cover bottoms of two round pans. Fold squares of parchment into fan shapes, align with center of pan, and trim excess from edge. Technique demonstrated in video. Lay parchment rounds in bottom of pans and set aside.
3. Chop nuts if not pre-chopped. 5-6 pulses in the blender or processor should chop nuts to correct size. Empty into dry ingredient bowl.
4. Measure out flours, leavening, and spices. Whisk together with nuts and set aside.
5. Measure oil, buttermilk, applesauce, and vanilla into processor or blender. Strain carrots and add. Blend until uniform.
6. Add wet mix to dry mix. Add sugar and eggs. Beat with mixer on medium speed for two minutes.
7. Pour batter evenly between two pans. Shake pans to distribute batter and smooth top. Place both pans in oven and bake at 375° about 30 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. If oven is hot or bakes unevenly, reduce temperature to 350° and rotate pans halfway through baking.
8. Remove pans from oven when cakes are done. Allow to cool completely on wire racks before de-panning and frosting.

So that’s how you make the cakes themselves. You could use more pans to make more layers, but I’m happy with a classic two-layer cake. Substituting some of the sugar for molasses leads to a much moister cake, so if you still want some crumble, use all brown sugar. As for the frosting, it’s traditional to make a cream cheese frosting for carrot cake, and I’m personally just fine with following tradition on this one.

Ingredients:

½ stick butter (¼ c.)
1 8-oz. block cream cheese
1 ½ tsp. vanilla extract
¼ tsp. salt
~3 c. powdered sugar

Directions:

1. Beat butter, cream cheese, vanilla, and salt together with mixer on medium-high speed until it forms smooth paste.
2. Gradually beat in powdered sugar on medium speed until desired texture and taste is reached. Less or more sugar can be used, but approximate measure is 3 cups.
3. Chill in refrigerator about 20 minutes before spreading over cooled cake. Re-mix if chilled too long.

So this is a pretty simple carrot cake. I skipped over some more technical aspects in favor of pulverizing ingredients together in the blender or with the hand mixer. Normally baking is a little more refined, but cakes are basically made with the muffin method where you mix wet and dry teams separately then combine them at the end, so they’re a little more forgiving than recipes that rely on creaming or the biscuit method.

I hope you guys enjoy this carrot cake recipe, and share it with friends and family. Please leave your thoughts in a comment below, or get in touch with me directly by filling out the form on the contact page.

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