Carrot Cake with Lemon Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting
An easy delicious and moist layered carrot cake, covered with tangy lemon cinnamon cream cheese frosting. Perfect for spring brunches and dinners, or to use up that abundance of summer CSA carrots!
What is it about springtime and carrot cakes? They really do go together perfectly.
Just like the french vanilla lemon blueberry scones I shared early in the week, carrot cake is a perfect addition to spring and summer brunches or a stellar after-dinner dessert. Fluffy white cream cheese frosting, bright orange specks of carrots – carrot cake is a sure sign that spring has arrived.
I first shared this recipe waaaay back in 2011. Six years ago – practically a lifetime in food blogging terms. I generally let my old recipes stay where they are, but I recently remade this carrot cake with lemon cinnamon cream cheese frosting and decided the post needed a facelift.
A few tweaks to the ingredients, some shiny new pictures, and a spot on the front page for a bit. This cake was just too good to hide away behind six years of recipes!
{And speaking of shiny new pictures, take a look at the pictures that were in the original post. ↓↓↓ Yikes! Let’s pour one out for the good old days of food blogging, when a poorly lit picture taken on a point and shoot camera immediately got thousands of pageviews from Tastespotting.}
So let’s just jump on in to this carrot cake recipe, because it’s too good to keep stalling.
The Best Carrot Cake Recipe
There are zillions of different carrot cake recipes, and the best one is the one that meets all your carrot cake requirements. For me, this means lots of cinnamon, LOTS of carrots, light on the nuts, and absolutely no pineapple whatsoever. I love you in my fruit salad, but not in my cakes!
I like plain vanilla cakes sky high and light and fluffy. But carrot cakes? I always prefer mine to be dense. I find that cakes that wind up in the refrigerator, like this one because of the cream cheese frosting, hold up much better when dense.
Let’s pause for a second and talk about that refrigeration…
Do you have to refrigerate cream cheese frosting?
This always comes up with cream cheese frosting. Do you have to refrigerate it? How long can it sit out? It’s time for my favorite subject… kitchen chemistry!
Kitchen Chemistry
Sugar acts as a preservative. (Think about making jam — it’s the sugar content that allows us to can jam and save it for months at room temperature.) Sugar is hygroscopic, meaning it absorbs water. It can draw the water out of dairy , thus reducing the amount of water available for growth of bacteria. Butter, cream, and cream cheese are stabilized by all the sugar, and thus safe to store at room temperature for up to three days if the sugar content is sufficient.
So, sugar acts as a preservative. Great! But what’s that about needing sufficient sugar content?
Cream cheese is roughly 33% fat and up to 55% water — that’s a lot of water! So you need a lot of sugar to draw out all that water to act as a preservative.
You need (roughly) a pound (4 cups) of confectioners sugar per half-pound (8 ounces) of cream cheese to stabilize the frosting enough to let it sit out at room temperature. This frosting contains 16 ounces of cream cheese and 4 ounces of butter, but only 3 cups of confectioners sugar. So yes, this cake does require refrigeration!
Whew! Are you still with me after our kitchen chemistry explanation?
Now that we know we need to refrigerate our cake, we want to make sure it’s a little more dense. A cake that is dense generally has excess moisture, and more moisture prevents the cake from getting as stale. Don’t worry, this isn’t pound cake level dense – it’s just not airy. To make sure it has that extra moisture and density, grate your carrots fresh – don’t buy the bags of pre-grated carrots!
It’s delicious and well worth the extra effort, trust me!
Lemon Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting
The one thing everyone seems to agree on when it comes to carrot cake? Cream cheese frosting!
Now, look. I’ll willingly admit that I am not the biggest fan of cream cheese frosting. It’s just so… sweet. Tooth-achingly, cloyingly sweet. We don’t need such a sweet frosting to cover up our delicious carrot cake!
Instead, we’ll add some amazing flavors that aren’t sweet: cinnamon and lemon. Such a perfect pairing! The frosting stays light and fresh, but still has that sweet tang you expect for a carrot cake with cream cheese frosting.
Tips and Tricks for a Perfect Carrot Cake
- Use room temperature ingredients. Using room temperature ingredients ensures everything mixes together smoothly.
- Beat the butter together until light and fluffy. We want this cake to be a little dense, but not really dense. Beating the butter and sugar together really well — at least 3 to 4 minutes — will mix a lot of air into the batter, giving it extra lift while it bakes.
- Use freshly grated carrots, not a pre-shredded bag. As mentioned above, you want the extra moisture from freshly grated carrots. The pre-grated type dries out too quickly, which will result in a staler cake once it’s stored in the fridge.
- Refrigerate the cake after frosting. Don’t risk the food poisoning! Take the cake out of the refrigerator 30 minutes before serving to bring to room temperature, then refrigerate any leftovers after serving.
- To keep the cake fresher once sliced, wrap exposed edges of cake with plastic wrap. The outside exposed edges of a cut cake will dry out fastest. Combat this by pressing a sheet of plastic wrap along the exposed side of cake before storing it in the fridge.
What are your carrot cake preferences? Nuts? No nuts? Pineapple? No pineapple? Do you (shudder) add raisins to yours? Light and fluffy or deliciously dense? Where do you stand?
I’ve made this cake a few times since my initial cake six years ago. Every time I’ve brought it somewhere to share, there has been nary a single dense, carrot filled, pineapple free, slightly nutty crumb left. I’m going to go ahead and call this carrot cake with lemon cinnamon cream cheese frosting a true crowd pleaser.
More Layer Cake Recipes:
- Chocolate Hazelnut Layer Cake
- Vanilla Layer Cake with Blueberry Cardamom Curd
- Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup Cake
- Chocolate Oreo Layer Cake
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A easy delicious and moist layered carrot cake, covered with tangy lemon cinnamon cream cheese frosting. Cake should be stored in the refrigerator after frosting. A Bunsen Burner Bakery Original Protocol As an Amazon Associate and member of other affiliate programs, I earn from qualifying purchases.Carrot Cake with Lemon Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting
Ingredients
FOR THE CAKE:
FOR THE FROSTING:
Instructions
Notes
Recommended Products
Nutrition Information:
Yield: 14 Serving Size: 1 slice
Amount Per Serving: Calories: 623 Total Fat: 35.6g Carbohydrates: 70.7g Protein: 7.9g
Oh I just love the lemon and cinnamon cream cheese frosting, what a great compliment to carrot cake
It is SO GOOD! Cinnamon and lemon were just made for carrot cake.
Looks really good, great flavours for a carrot cake. And I love your styling in decorating it, looks really classic and gorgeous.
Thank you, Kavey!
Hilarious! I was the official “cheesecake maker” of MY lab in graduate school! And MY blog grew out of sharing recipes with labmates and friends! Small world. 🙂
Anywho, I will definitely be making this cake in the near future because 1) it’s the hubster’s birthday soon and 2) he ADORES carrot cake. The addition of lemon and cinnamon to the frosting sounds amazeballs!
Get out!! I just spent a while poking around your blog and love your backstory. I’m nearing the end of my postdoc and stuck in the “what the heck do I want to do next?!” stage, so I love reading about “outside the box” careers fellow scientist pursue.
Have to make this for my mom on mother’s day! Carrot Cake is her favorite, and your recipe looks so easy to follow!
Just love Carrot cakes and those pics are so awesome! You have a wonderful blog!
Thank you, Prasanna!
This carrot cake looks fantastic!! Never thought of adding cinnamon to the frosting – sounds like a great idea! Pinning this recipe to save for later.
Definitely try it – cinnamon in cream cheese frosting is delicious!
This cake looks so dense! And what a fun twist to the traditional frosting.
Wow, what a great looking cake. I can see why this is a crowd pleaser, it looks delicious and very inviting. I love that cream cheese frost.
I love the addition of cinnamon to the cream cheese frosting! Perfect combo to go with the carrot cake. Thank you so much for sharing!
Lemon cinnamon frosting is such a great idea!
Love the addition of lemon to the frosting. It really does add a pop of freshness to any recipe. And definitely a no-vote on the raisins in any dessert!
Looks delicious. The idea of adding cinnamon is just perfect. Thanks for sharing
The texture of this cake is rustic and the frosting and nuts really give it character and completes the cake. The prep time and bake time are so manageable and the ingredients are easy to find. Its full of flavors that mix well together, which I am sure will result in a great tasting cake.
I’ve been enjoying carrot cake smoothie to start my day but it’s time to upgrade it to this cake. And that frosting – it looks so good with the addition of cinnamon.