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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?
If you made this recipe then I would LOVE for you to leave me a review below to let me know how you liked it! Also, please make sure to tag me on Instagram if you make it!
A note on salt and oven temperature
It is important to note the type of salt that is called for in a recipe. I use Diamond Crystal salt throughout my recipes - if you use a different sort of kosher salt or regular table salt you will need to adjust accordingly as some salt is 'saltier' than others. Morton's salt is twice as salty, so you will need half the quantity. Same goes for a regular table salt. I am working to get gram measurements throughout my recipes for salt but still getting there.
All oven temperatures are conventional unless otherwise stated. If you are baking on fan / convection, you will need to adjust the temperature. An oven thermometer is a great investment to ensure that your oven is the correct temperature.
Using the double / triple function in the recipe card
You will notice that there is a '1X' '2X' '3X' button in my recipe card. This can be used for doubling or tripling a recipe. However, please note that this only doubles the ingredient quantities in the ingredients list and NOT in the method. If there are quantities or pan sizes in the method of the recipe (for example weigh out 150g brown butter), you will need to scale this number manually. It will also not change the baking time in the recipe so you will need to adjust this yourself too. It is always a good idea to read through a recipe fully before doubling it just to check this. If you would like to scale this recipe or convert for another pan size, use my calculator!
Tools and equipment
For a list of my go-to tools and equipment, I have a post you can refer to here.
Why is this recipe in grams?
I post my recipes in grams as it is the most accurate way to bake. Cups are not only inaccurate but they vary in volume worldwide. There is no way for me to provide one cup measure that works for everyone. However, posting in weight fixes this issue. If you would like the recipe in cups you are welcome to convert it yourself via google, but please do not ask me to do it for you as I am not comfortable providing a recipe using a method that I have not tested. Baking with a scale is easy, accurate, and also makes cleanup super simple. Here is the scale that I use if you would like a recommendation! Here's to accurate baking!
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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 Tbsp (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 Tbsp (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.
Keywords: Carrot Cake, Snack Cake, Cream Cheese Frosting, Piped Carrots, Carrot, Cream Cheese, Square Cake
Comments
What can I use instead of maple syrup?
I'm not 100% sure sorry as I haven't tested with anything else, but honey might work!
This is delicious and the tiny carrots are too cute 🙂
★★★★★
Made this today for my charity bake - super easy recipe to follow. Loved doing the carrot decorations!
★★★★★
Ah yayyy I love that! Aren't they so fun to make! x
carrot cake is my favorite and this is the perfect size!
thanks, as always for such great recipes!!!
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Ah yayyy of course!
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!
★★★★★
Ah yayyyy so glad you love!!
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
★★★★★
So happy you enjoyed! The cake has a cream cheese frosting already... which ganache are you referring to? 🙂
Whoopsie! Made the banana cake with ganache but used this cream cheese frosting!
Ah yesss smart move!!
Can i half the frosting? It seems like a lot
You can do whatever you like with the frosting! 🙂
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!
★★★★★
Yay I am so happy you loved!