The word healthier appearing in the same sentence as cake? Yep, its true, and it actually tastes better than the original. I’m sharing my mom’s famous carrot cake recipe with a couple of big changes I’ve made to make it a heck of a lot healthier.

The original recipe called for 1.5 cups of vegetable oil and 2 cups of sugar. Pretty much par for the course from a 1970’s-ish era recipe. But this updated version includes whole-wheat flour, carrots, pineapple, nuts, and no added fat! There is still some sugar, but we are talking about making a cake, right? And it is easy too – the whole cake is mixed in one bowl.

There is a caloric problem ahead, though. Carrot cake tastes best with cream cheese frosting, and that my friends, includes an entire pound of confectioners’ sugar, a stick of butter and a block of cream cheese. I haven’t found a healthy substitute for the frosting yet, but please let me know if you have. There are a few ways to reduce the amount of the calorie-bomb frosting, but just go forward knowing that since the cake is pretty healthy, you can have some guilty pleasure with the frosting.

This is one of my most requested recipes, and you can make it as a sheet cake, a layer cake or cupcakes. It is great as a spring dessert, an Easter treat, classroom cupcakes (skip the nuts), a hostess gift or an easy treat for a potluck.

Carrot Cake With Cream Cheese Frosting

Cake Ingredients:

• 2 cups whole wheat flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 ½ tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 cup sugar (original recipe called for 2 cups)
• 1 ½ cups unsweetened applesauce (original recipe called for 1 ½ cups vegetable oil)
• 4 eggs, beaten
• 2 cups grated carrots (4 or 5)
• 8 ¼ oz can crushed pineapple, drained
• ½ cup chopped nuts (I prefer walnuts), optional

Cream Cheese Frosting Ingredients:

• ½ cup butter, softened
• 8 oz cream cheese, softened
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 lb box confectioners’ sugar, sifted

Make The Batter:

Sift together the flour, baking powder, soda, salt, and cinnamon.  Add the sugar, applesauce, and beaten eggs, and mix well.  Add carrots, pineapple, nuts, and blend.  The batter is done!

Choose your desired shape (layer cake, sheet cake or cupcakes). Generously spray the pans you’ll use with cooking spray, then fill them with batter.

Bake at 350 for the following approximate times. Please check the cake regularly while baking due to differences in oven temps, altitude, etc.

Carrot Cake Baking Times

Cool for a few minutes in pans, then turn out layers or cupcakes and cool on wire racks. The sheet cake can stay in the sheet pan and be served from there. Use a stainless steel cake cutter utensil for cutting and serving.

Prepare the cream cheese frosting recipe below while waiting for the cake to be fully cooled.

Make The Cream Cheese Frosting:

Cut the butter and cream cheese into chunks, then place them in a large mixing bowl with the vanilla. Beat with an electric mixer until creamy, and while trying not to think about the fat grams.  Add the confectioners’ sugar gradually, beating well after each addition.  If it becomes too thick, add a small amount of milk to thin.

Frosting Options For Cakes And Cupcakes

A 3-Layer Cake

For a 3-layer carrot cake, place the first layer on the serving plate and frost the top of this layer. Yes, some fancy recipes will want you to slice off the top to make the layers perfectly flat, but that’s a waste of time in my opinion. The layers will appear ‘flat enough’ when you serve the cake, and it tastes so good, no one will be debating the exact flatness of the layers. Repeat with the second and third layers, frosting in between. Finally, frost the top and around the sides of the cake. This will use up just about all of the frosting.

If you want to save a few calories, you could choose to just frost between the layers and on the top leaving the sides unfrosted. In that case, only make a 1/2 recipe of the frosting below. Or give the other half to your husband and children to inhale with graham crackers.

You can sprinkle the top of the frosted cake with finely chopped nuts or get creative with other toppings and methods of swirling frosting. I’m not that fancy, but you can spend all day on YouTube looking at cake frosting and decorating methods and let me know what you do. I’d love to see pictures!

A Sheet Cake

If you leave the sheet cake in the baking pan, you’ll obviously just frost the top. If you do remove it from the pan, you can choose to frost the top and sides or just the top. And again, I’ll leave the creativity to you for how to decorate.

For the Super Bowl, I have a pair of field goals I stand on each end of the cake and some plastic football players that make an appearance almost every February. I convinced a grocery store bakery to sell them to me years ago, but these football cake decorations are now easily found online as well. There are also options for football cupcake toppers as well.

Cupcakes

Simply frost the tops or get really fancy and pipe the frosting in one long swirling motion similar to a soft serve ice cream cone. You could sprinkle finely chopped nuts on the cupcakes as well.

Serving Options

When I make the layer cake, I like to serve it on a glass domed cake stand. Maybe that’s because the recipe originated in the 70’s, or maybe I’m just old school. But in all honesty, you really can’t wrap a frosted cake in foil or plastic wrap even if you didn’t do a fancy decorating job! So the domed cake stand is an easy way to store it and keep it from getting dried out.

I actually use the cake stand for other uses such as creating a higher serving surface when doing a buffet or an assortment of appetizers. They’re great for stacking dinner or sandwich rolls, pieces of fruit, keeping pancakes, biscuits or waffles warm (under the dome), sliced cheese and grapes. I love varying heights of serving dishes when there is a lot of selection. I have had mine for so long that I can’t find it on online now, but this one is pretty close and has great reviews.

If you need to ‘take the cake’ and score points at a party, a school function, a ladies’ tennis gathering, you’re going to need a carrier, or things could get disastrous! This versatile cake carrier will hold a layer cake or 24 cupcakes. And if you’re not convinced you’ll need to carry baked goods often, it also does a great job of keeping bugs out of salads and other side dishes for outdoor entertaining.

My mom and I would love to know if you make our carrot cake and what you think. And if you get fancy on the frosting and decorating, please do share pictures on our social media channels, would love to see some ideas!

I would love it if you’d share this post with friends!