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

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

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.

Prep Time 25

Cook Time 40

Total Time 1 5

Servings cake

Author Chrissie Nelson Rotko

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

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!
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.
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.
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.

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