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baking with brian: the best ever carrot cake

My friend and coworker, Brian, shares his recipe for the most delicious, decadent, sheet pan carrot cake, inspired by one of his favorite television shows, America’s Test Kitchen.

(And, if you’re gluten free…we’ve got you covered! Brian shares a gluten free carrot cake recipe in this post too! Two for the price of one.)

america's test kitchen inspired carrot cake, piece of cake on a fork ready for eating

I am not a baker. Sure, I always bake a batch of Grandma Vera’s sugar cookies at Christmas, and I’ve been known to whip up an indulgent caramel apple pie around the holiday season, or some easy lemon bars when a craving hits, but I am not a baker.

(In non baking, but yummy dessert news, I am obsessed with these grilled peach sundaes, and you do not need to be a baker to make these!)

I think it’s because I lack the patience and precision that you often find in someone that’s a really good baker; I’m pretty impatient when it comes to the kitchen and would much rather throw a dash of this and a few squirts of that into a savory dish rather than take the time and energy to really figure out and learn the meticulousness and science behind baking.

Taste testing is much more my speed.

three pieces of sheet pan carrot cake on three white plates

So while I am not a baker (but an excellent taste tester), I wanted to bring you more baking recipes to the blog.

And in fact, it was while I was taste testing (read: indulging in more than one slice of magnificent carrot cake at like 10 AM on a Tuesday) my friend Brian’s oh so good carrot cake, we had an idea.

Well, it was really Brian’s idea, because as I stuffed my face with carrot cake and cream cheese frosting he said something like, “Wouldn’t it be cool if this carrot cake was on your blog,” (he was joking) and I said, “That’s a wonderful idea!” (I was not joking).

So of course carrot cake had to be the first installment of my new blog series, Baking with Brian.

Meet Brian: the baker behind this fabulous moist carrot cake

Brian and I have worked together for a few years and over those years, my coworkers and I have gotten to reap the benefit of Brian’s mad baking skills. Brian says he brings his creations to work because, “I have a terrible sweet tooth and if I didn’t bring my stuff to work I would die, or get fat or get diabetes.”

And since we don’t want out friend to get fat or get diabetes or god forbid, die, my coworkers and I are more than happy to take one for the team and indulge in the creations coming out of Brian’s kitchen.

piece of carrot cake with cream cheese frosting on a white plate

Brian started baking for some very important reasons: “I like food. I like good food. [Baking at home] is cheaper than buying, and it’s more fun to make. And I like raw cookie dough and getting to eat as much frosting as I want.” (Very valid points, Brian.)

He also remembers helping his mom and grandmother in the kitchen as early as ages five and six and relishes those memories. “Both my mom and my grandmother are good bakers. My mom gave me a lot of the basics; she taught me how to make fudge and bread and I branched off from there.”

Other than being in the kitchen with family, Brian is 100% self-taught, mostly from a lifetime of watching cooking shows, “because that’s what came on after Sesame Street and before Bob Ross.”

His favorite cooking show is America’s Test Kitchen because “I like their geeky approach. I’m a geek, and they are geeks too.”

eating a piece of moist carrot cake inspired by america's test kitchen

Brian (who is apparently the opposite of me because I find baking to be very stressful so he must have much more patience than I do), loves to bake because baking is a stress reliever for him.

“Sugar boosts endorphins at a basic level, [and baking gives me] something else to focus my mind or energy on and sometimes helps me get a break from whatever else I’m dealing with. It’s a nice hour and a half breather [for me] and [I like] having something as an end product. It’s a nice and rewarding feeling.”

Brian bakes every two weeks, making everything from scratch (his baking goal is to make Tiramisu, and while he loves baking from scratch, he thinks that homemade lady fingers are what is standing between him and Tiramisu.) 

Brian is notorious at work for his banana bread, truffles, and carrot cake.

Brian’s Carrot Cake is inspired by America’s Test Kitchen Carrot Cake

America’s Test Kitchen inspires a lot of Brian’s recipes because “he takes their advice very seriously.”

For example, “[When they make banana bread], their mission is to pack as many bananas into the bread as possible. Their method involves microwaving bananas and then condensing the banana juice into syrup and I have adopted that into my own banana bread.”

Brian has taken the same approach that he does with banana bread with his carrot cake, and has created a delicious and moist carrot cake inspired by America’s Test Kitchen carrot cake.

While I hate the word moist, moist is the best word to describe Brian’s decadent carrot cake.

Moist as in not dry, not as in a dense, clammy, water logged, sticky kind of way (which is what I usually think of when I hear the cringe worthy word moist).

Brian says that dryness is a problem that comes with most carrot cakes, and so inspired by America’s Test Kitchen’s carrot cake, he strives to make his cake consistently moist.

He does this by using baby carrots (instead of regular carrots because baby carrots are already peeled and peeling “is part of the manual labor I hate”) and passing them through a grating disk in his food processor, giving course slivers of carrot throughout the cake batter.

piece of carrot cake on a white plate with floral napkin

The homemade cream cheese frosting is the just the cherry on top (in a dessert post we should definitely use dessert puns).

It’s made mostly of butter, cream cheese and sugar and all of those calories (what are calories anyways?) are worth every single bite.

Brian has also made a gluten free carrot cake a time or two (we have a coworker with Celiac disease and Brian always wants to make sure she has a treat), and so lucky us, he’s giving us the gluten free goods too!

Gluten Free Carrot Cake

According to Brian, “gluten is important for a reason. I am not a gluten-free baker. I don’t know the science behind it. I don’t know if I could live without gluten. And until I find a miraculous substitute (if any readers have suggestions…), I can confidently say that gluten provides structure to baked goods.”

That said, Brian wanted to experiment with gluten free baking, and was pleased with the results, so he agree to share his gluten free carrot cake recipe with us too.

To make Brian’s carrot cake gluten free, substitute almond flour, and, although the end product will not have the rise or cake-iness of the original, gluten filled carrot cake version (Brian does not suggest making a gluten free layer cake using this recipe) it still had all the flavor.

In fact, a lot of our taste testers (corworkers) preferred the gluten free carrot cake to the gluten-y version. The original America’s Test Kitchen inspired carrot cake is very moist, but the gluten-free version is almost like an English pudding.

Gluten Free Carrot Cake Cookies

And lucky us, Brian has even one more carrot cake recipe to share with us today: gluten free carrot cake cookies!

As the great Bob Ross said, “There are no mistakes, just happy accidents.” Brian made his gluten-free carrot cake recently using a spring form pan. The pan was slightly too small and had a bit of spillage.

The spillage spread out in a thin layer and, not one to waste dessert, Brian tried some of it – it was both crispy and chewy, it was a gluten free, carrot cake cookie!

He says he will definitely make these again sometime. 

america's test kitchen carrot cake on a white plate with a floral napkin

So basically you’re going to want to make Brian’s moist carrot cake. If you’re also a moist hater like me, another word I would use to describe Brian’s carrot cake is divine. Yes, divine would be a great word to use to describe this carrot cake.

carrot cake

the best ever carrot cake, inspired by america's test kitchen

Yield: 1 cake
Prep Time: 25 minutes
Cook Time: 40 minutes
Total Time: 1 hour 5 minutes

Brian makes the most delicious, decadent, sheet pan carrot cake, inspired by one of his favorite television shows, America's Test Kitchen. This moist and flavorful cake can easily be made gluten free by substituting almond flour.

Ingredients

  • For the cake:
  • 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
  • 1/2 tsp nutmeg
  • 1/4 tsp ground cloves
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 3 cups shredded carrots
  • 1 1/2 cup granulated sugar
  • 1/2 cup (packed) brown sugar
  • 4 eggs
  • 1 1/2 cups vegetable oil
  • For the cream cheese frosting:
  • 16 oz (2 packages) of softened cream cheese
  • 16 tbsp (2 sticks) of softened butter
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 2 1/2 cups of powdered sugar

Instructions

Combine all purpose flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, ground cloves and salt in a mixing bowl.

Shred carrots until you have 3 cups (packed) shredded carrots. Baby carrots are convenient since they are already peeled, and if you have a food processor with a shredding disk, it does *grate*!

Blend in a food processor or with eggbeaters the granulated sugar, brown sugar, eggs and vegetable oil.

Mix the sugar syrup and carrots into the dry ingredients with a spatula until well combined and no flour streaks remain.

Line a sheet pan with parchment paper (12" x 17" pans work well), and pour in batter.

Bake at 350 degrees for about 40 minutes (or until a toothpick comes out clean), and let cool completely before frosting.

This is a good time to take your cream cheese and butter out of the refrigerator to soften for the cream cheese frosting.

For the frosting, in a mixing bowl, combine with eggbeaters the softened cream cheese, softened butter, and vanilla.

Sift out 2.5 cups of powdered sugar and gradually beat into the cream cheese mixture.

Notes

  1. Finishing Touches: If you baked the cake in a sheet pan, you can make a layered cake super easily. Just cut the sheet cake in half and you have two layers! Plop on a thick coating of frosting on the bottom layer of cake and on goes the top cake layer. Then frost away!
  2. Carrot cake is naturally pretty rustic. (And it's going to taste great whether you leave it rustic or dress it up). If you do want it to look a bit more refined, then you should frost it in two stages, (carrot cake crumbles easily and you can end up lifting up a lot of crumbles as you frost). To do this, plop half of your frosting onto the cake and thinly coat every surface so that you spackle down all of the crumbs; after you've got your first coat of frosting, spread the rest on an you shouldn't have to deal with any unsightly (but still totally delicious!) crumbs on top of your icing.
  3. Gluten Free Option: Gluten is important for a reason. I am not a gluten-free baker. I don't know the science behind it. I don't know if I could live without gluten. And until I find a miraculous substitute (if any readers have suggestions...), I can confidently say that gluten provides structure to baked goods. That said, I wanted to experiment, and was pleased with the results. I substituted almond flour and, although the end product did not have the rise or cake-iness of the original (I would not suggest attempting a layered cake), it had all the flavor and a lot of testers, (i.e. coworkers), preferred it to the gluteny version. The original is very moist, but the gluten-free version is almost like an English pudding.
  4. Gluten-free carrot cake cookies: As the great Bob Ross said, "There are no mistakes, just happy accidents." I tried this gluten-free version again recently, this time in a spring form pan. It was slightly too small and had a bit of spillage, (fortunately, I had a baking sheet underneath). The spillage spread out in a thin layer and, not one to waste dessert, I tried some of it - it was both crispy and chewy, it was a carrot cake cookie! I'll try these again sometime.

Nutrition Information:
Yield: 16 Serving Size: 1 slice
Amount Per Serving: Calories: 649Total Fat: 44gSaturated Fat: 15gTrans Fat: 1gUnsaturated Fat: 25gCholesterol: 107mgSodium: 402mgCarbohydrates: 60gFiber: 1gSugar: 43gProtein: 6g

Did you make this recipe?

Share a photo of your creation on Instagram and mention @chrissie_beth! Make sure you're following along for more delicious recipes!

carrot cakeBrian is Chrissie’s friend and coworker, and while he was (kindly) bullied into participating in this blog post, he would admit it was sort of fun if you asked him. (Also here’s a fun fact: Brian is also from Northern Virginia and went to high school where Chrissie’s mom was a teacher. Small world.) When he’s not defending his client’s rights and upholding justice as an Assistant Public Defender, he’s making decadent, sweet treats from scratch, lying in a hammock listening to Good Vibrations, or spending time with his dog, Atomic, and cat, Notorious, Tommy and Tory for short. Besides justice and baking, Brian also likes motorcycle riding, woodworking, karaoke, dancing (badly, his own description) and Prince. 

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