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Carrot Snack Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting. This easy, moist, carrot sheet cake is the most perfect easter cake. It is made with pantry staples and finished with a simple cream cheese frosting and some super cute piped frosting carrots. This cake is great for a simple easter dessert, or for entertaining, as sheet cakes are super easy to transport.
Carrot Snack Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting
Hi! I hope you are keeping well. I wanted to pop in and share a wee easy recipe that is perfect for the upcoming spring season - this Carrot Snack Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting, made with some pantry staples! As someone who works from home, goes through a lot of ingredients and doesn’t have a car, I almost always turn to online grocery shopping through Instacart when I need to replenish staples, and my favourite place to get them from is ALDI - their ingredients are super high quality and incredibly well priced, which make choosing to shop with them a no-brainer every time.
How to make Carrot Snack Cake
This carrot snack cake is a twist on a classic carrot cake - instead of baking it in a round pan or turning it into a layer cake, I baked it in a 9” square pan (this super cute speckled one is from ALDI!), and then made a quick and easy cream cheese frosting to top it off with. The cake itself is the perfect texture - there is moisture from the grape seed oil and flavour from the melted butter, and fresh grated carrots and a little bit of spice to round it all off so nicely. The cake can easily be made a day or two in advance if you were looking to prep ahead, then all you would have to do the day of serving is add on the frosting, which comes together super quickly and is nice and sturdy, making it perfect to swoop onto your snack cake.
A few wee tips:
- I finished the cake with some little piped carrots using the cream cheese frosting but you can finish it any way that you like - chopped pecans or walnuts would be great, or some toasted coconut, or just some swoops with your spatula.
- You can also add the frosting to the cake while it is in the cake pan, which makes it easy to store or transport.
- If you were wanting to make this ahead, you can store the cake, either wrapped or in an airtight container, at room temperature for 1-2 days. Add the cream cheese frosting the day of serving.
For more recipes using ALDI staples, check out:
- Kit Kat Cookies
- Hot Chocolate Sandwich Cookies
- Peach Slab Pie with Candied Pecan No-Churn Ice Cream
- Ginger Caramel Slice
❤️ Made this recipe and love it? ❤️
I would LOVE for you to leave me a review and star rating below to let me know how you liked it! Also, please make sure to tag me on Instagram!
Answers to your baking questions
Over the years, many of you have asked me questions about:
- baking in grams
- adjusting oven temperatures
- what kind of salt to use
- and many more!
I've curated and answered them all for your easy reference in this frequently asked questions post!
Carrot Snack Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting
- Prep Time: 20 Minutes
- Cook Time: 45 Minutes
- Total Time: 1 hour 5 minutes plus cooling time
- Yield: 16 servings 1x
Description
This easy moist, carrot sheet cake is made with pantry staples and finished with a simple cream cheese frosting and piped frosting carrots.
Ingredients
Carrot Cake Snack Cake
- 1 cup (200g) Baker’s Corner Brown Sugar
- ½ cup (100g) Baker’s Corner Granulated Sugar
- ½ cup (110g) Carlini Grapeseed Oil or other Neutral Oil
- 5 Tbsp (75g) Countryside Creamery Unsalted Butter, melted and cooled
- ¼ cup plus 2 tablespoon (112g) Specially Selected 100% Pure Maple Syrup
- 3 Simply Nature Organic Grade A Cage Free Large Brown Eggs, at room temperature
- 1 ½ tsp vanilla extract
- 2 cups (255g) Baker’s Corner All-Purpose Flour
- 1 ½ tsp baking soda
- ¾ tsp salt
- 1 ½ tsp cinnamon
- ½ tsp ground ginger
- 3 cups (270g) grated fresh carrot
Cream Cheese Frosting
- ½ cup plus 3 tablespoon (150g) Countryside Creamery Unsalted Butter, at room temperature
- 12oz (340g) Happy Farms Cream Cheese, Cold
- 5 cups (640g) Baker’s Corner Powdered Sugar, sifted
- ½ tsp salt
- Orange and Green gel food colour, if desired
- Sprinkles, if desired
Instructions
CARROT CAKE SNACK CAKE
- Preheat the oven to 350°f / 180°c. Grease a 9” square pan with baking spray.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the brown sugar, granulated sugar, grapeseed oil, melted butter, maple syrup and eggs and mix on medium speed until well combined and slightly lightened in colour, 2-3 minutes. Add the vanilla and mix until combined.
- In a medium bowl, combine the all-purpose flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and ginger. Add to the mixer and mix until just combined. Add the carrots and mix on low until just combined.
- Transfer to the prepared pan. Bake the snack cake for 40 to 45 minutes, until the centre springs back when pressed and a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. Allow to cool in the pan for 15 minutes then turn onto a wire rack.
CREAM CHEESE FROSTING
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, or in a large bowl, cream together the butter and cream cheese on high until pale and fluffy, 3-4 minutes.
- Add powdered sugar and salt, and mix on low to combine (it will take a while for the mixture to come together but just be patient). Turn the mixer to high and beat for another 3-4 minutes, or until light and fluffy.
- If you want to pipe the carrots, remove a little of the frosting into two bowls and colour orange and green. Transfer to piping bags with the ends snipped off or fitted with small round piping tips.
- Spread the remainder of the frosting over the surface of the cake and add sprinkles if desired. Finish with piped carrots. Alternatively you could sprinkle the top with chopped walnuts or pecans, or lightly toasted coconut.
Comments
Ana says
What can I use instead of maple syrup?
Erin says
I'm not 100% sure sorry as I haven't tested with anything else, but honey might work!
stacy says
This is delicious and the tiny carrots are too cute 🙂
Kylee says
Made this today for my charity bake - super easy recipe to follow. Loved doing the carrot decorations!
Erin says
Ah yayyy I love that! Aren't they so fun to make! x
caribou says
carrot cake is my favorite and this is the perfect size!
thanks, as always for such great recipes!!!
Erin says
Ah yayyy of course!
Krystal says
Just baked tonight for a small celebration in our home (and for many other too!) I made a big carrot with orange-tinted frosting and the greens were made from green Jimmie sprinkles. LOVED IT!
Erin says
Ah yayyyy so glad you love!!
Alanna Green says
Deliciously fluffy and easy to follow recipe. I substituted the ganache for a cream cheese frosting because my husband doesn’t like rich chocolate toppings (😩) but it was still beautiful!
Thank you for sharing x
Erin says
So happy you enjoyed! The cake has a cream cheese frosting already... which ganache are you referring to? 🙂
Alanna says
Whoopsie! Made the banana cake with ganache but used this cream cheese frosting!
Erin says
Ah yesss smart move!!
Christa says
Can i half the frosting? It seems like a lot
Erin says
You can do whatever you like with the frosting! 🙂
Haley says
Made this today for Easter and it was a huge hit!! I added some finely chopped walnuts too. The cake and frosting were perfectly sweet (aka not too sweet!!) and the frosting especially had a great balance of cream cheese and wasn’t too cream cheesy. We all loved it!
Erin Clarkson says
Yay I am so happy you loved!
Kate says
I just took this cake out of the oven and it smells amazing. I haven't eaten it yet since it's for a party tonight, but I'm pretty sure it's going to be delicious. I mostly came here to say how amazing the pan conversion tool is. I was able to convert this recipe for an 8-inch square pan super easily, rather than just making it as is and hoping for the best with a smaller pan than called for. So cool! Thank you!
Kate says
I just took this cake out of the oven and it smells amazing. I haven't eaten it yet since it's for a party tonight, but I'm pretty sure it's going to be delicious. I mostly came here to say how amazing the pan conversion tool is. I was able to convert this recipe for an 8-inch square pan super easily, rather than just making it as is and hoping for the best with a smaller pan than called for. So cool! Thank you!
(Sorry, forgot to leave a rating on my original comment!)
Erin Clarkson says
Hi hi! So happy you loved! It's so handy!
Lara says
Sadly this didn’t work out for me, every other recipe has been amazing so it’s a tough comparison! Cake was too sweet and lacked the deep spice I usually love with carrot cake.
Emily says
For the second year I have used this frosting for an apple cake for my Gram's birthday (99 this year!) she loves it! Thank you!
Catherine says
This recipe is amazing!! Really easy to make (a fun activity with my 3 year old!) and so delicious. I’m going to make it again for Easter next month and attempt the carrot decorations 🙂 I don’t have a 9 inch square pan so used an 8 inch and added 10 minutes to the baking time - perfect! I had a lot of leftover frosting (not complaining!) so next time I’ll attempt a 2/3-ish batch.
Thanks for another recipe that I will make over and over again!!
Sara B says
This was so tasty and very simple to make! We’ll definitely be making it again in our household. I used about half as much powdered sugar in the frosting, because I typically like cream cheese frostings a bit less sweet, but that’s just a personal preference—everything else was classic and perfect!