This carrot cake is perfectly spiced, moist and unbelievably good! Using candied carrot peels as decoration (optional), cream cheese frosting and sweetened shredded coconut, this cake is simply the best — I make it all the time.
My Ultimate Carrot Cake with Candied Carrot Peels recipe is one of my favorites from Zoë Bakes Cakes. I make it a lot. For birthdays, for Tuesdays, for family gatherings, it was the first cake my boys ate, because I could justify giving a baby cake, if it had carrots. I’m not suggesting it replace baby food, but for their first birthday cakes, it was my go to. I put this cake and many more of my all time favorites into my new book, Zoë Bakes Cakes: Everything You Need to Know to Make Your Favorite Layers, Bundts, Loaves, and More:
I was inspired to use the whole carrot after making Cenk Sönmezsoy’s Perfect Apple Pie, which uses every single bit of the apple to make the pie, core, peel, and seeds are all used to extract as much apple flavor as possible. I love that he didn’t waste a bit of the fruit. I usually peel the carrots and toss them away into the composter, which honestly doesn’t cause me too much guilt, but why not use them for the cake? I just washed the carrots, peeled them, and candied the peels. They go through several stages while baking. First they turn to carrot leather, chewy and soft, then they dehydrate fully and turn to a snappy, brittle, sweet, but earthy candy. Delicious.
You can watch me make the cake and carrot candy (plus a picture of my son eating his first carrot cake – 19 years ago) in my instagram video and find the recipe below.
Ingredients
Candied Carrot Peels
- Peels from 2 pounds organic carrots washed – Make sure you get a nice thick peel, if they are too thin, they will fall apart while you candy them. My peeler produces just the right thickness, but you may need to press a bit harder to get a nice peel.
- 1 cup (200g) sugar
- 1 cup (240ml) water
- 1 tablespoon orange blossom water or 1/2 teaspoon orange extract
- Pinch kosher salt
Carrot Cake
- 4 cups (450g) loosely packed finely grated carrots
- 2 1/3 cups (280g) all-purpose flour
- 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp kosher salt
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp ground ginger
- 1/4 tsp ground cloves
- 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
- 1 1/4 cups (250g) granulated sugar
- 1 cup (200g) lightly packed brown sugar
- 1 1/4 cups (300ml) mild-flavored oil such as vegetable oil
- 4 eggs at room temperature
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- Finely grated zest of 1/2 large orange
- 1 3/4 cups (150g) sweetened shredded coconut plus 1 3/4 cups additional for decorating the outside (if desired)
- 1 cup (160g) chopped dried fruit such as apricots, raisins, cherries
Cream Cheese Frosting
- 1 1/2 lb (680g) cream cheese at room temperature
- 1 1/2 cups (330g) unsalted butter at room temperature
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/4 tsp lemon extract optional
- 2 tsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
- 5 cups (600g) confectioners' sugar
- 2 tbsp Lyle’s Golden Syrup see note
Instructions
Candied Carrot Peels
- Preheat the oven to 200°F / 95°C. Line a baking sheet with a silicone baking mat.
- In a saucepan over medium-low heat, stir together the simple syrup, orange blossom water, and salt and warm to a gentle simmer. Add the carrot peels and cook just until the peels are turning translucent.
- Strain the peels in a fine-mesh sieve and then lay them out on the prepared baking sheet.
- Bake until the carrot peels start to curl up, anywhere from 30-60 minutes, depending on their thickness. Turn the oven temperature to 100°F / 40°C and bake until completely dry; this can take several hours. Transfer to an airtight container and store in a cool, dry place for up to 48 hours.
Carrot Cake
- Preheat oven to 350°F / 175°C. Generously grease two 8 by 3-inch cake pans, then line them with greased parchment paper.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and nutmeg until well combined.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together both sugars, oil, eggs, vanilla, orange zest, 1 3/4 cups / 150g of the coconut, dried fruit, and carrots. Then add the dry ingredients and mix just until uniformly combined.
- Divide the batter into the two prepared pans and spread evenly using an offset spatula. Gently tap the pans on the counter several times to release excess air bubbles.
- Bake until a tester comes out clean, 50 to 55 minutes. Let cakes cool completely before removing from the pans. Remove the parchment paper and place one cake layer on a serving plate.
Cream Cheese Icing
- Make the icing by blending the cream cheese, butter, vanilla, lemon extract, lemon juice, confectioners' sugar and Lyle's Golden Syrup, until smooth.
- Put one of the layers of cake on a 8-Inch Cake Circle and then top it with 1 cup of the cream cheese icing.
- Cover the cake with a thin crumb coat (watch video for crumb coat instructions). Then finish with a smooth coating of the cream cheese icing (watch video for smooth icing instructions). If using, arrange candied carrot peels around the cake or press additional shredded coconut to the sides of the cake.
- Serve cake immediately or store in the refrigerator (see note about candied carrot peels), covered, for up to 48 hours. If refrigerated, bring the cake to room temperature before serving.
That decoration is simply genius! So pretty! This cake looks delicious ♥
Thank you! I needed a fun decorating idea for my daughter’s bday cake. It was a hit!
Gorgeous and so creative. Def going to make this one!!
If I were to make this with shorter carrot peels, would it then keep in the fridge? (If they were flush with the frosting).
I don’t see in recipe instructions where you add the zest. Also, my cakes started to get overbaked at 32 minutes, are you sure about 50?! 🙂
Thank you, I have updated the recipe! And yes I confirmed it should be 50-55 minutes at 350. If yours started to get overbaked at 32, it may be that your oven runs hot. Zoe suggests using an oven thermometer to check your oven temp.
Since I’m allergic to coconut, what else can I use?
Thank you much!
Hi Jo! We’re not sure of a substitute for it, but you could certainly omit it. Zoë knows some readers have done this with success, she just hasn’t made it this way herself. The texture will be slightly different, but it should work just fine to leave it out. Enjoy!
yay! my first cake from zoebakes. The cake is absolutely delicious, the spices+orange peel truly make a difference. I used an 8inch springform pan and was surprised to see my cake was done after 35 mins (I do have a thermometer) I did not follow the recipe for the frosting – seemed to be too much!
The photo is of a 4-layer cake. Your directions do not indicate to split the layers which I think would be very difficult to do with such a moist cake.
Double recipe??
Hi Ginger! You have a good eye. If you chill the cakes you can cut them into 4 layers, but it is challenging because of the moisture content. Just about every time Zoë makes a cake, she decorates it differently depending on the look she’s going for. In the book she decided to divide it into 2 pans for ease and that’s the recipe you see here. I hope this helps!