Homemade Carrot Cake with Raisins

Carrot cake is a delicious and moist treat made with freshly grated carrots. This tasty and rich spice cake is best eaten warm or fresh out of the oven. Top with cream cheese frosting or serve with ice cream!

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Carrot cake is a delicious and flavourful cake made with grated carrots. The grated carrots give the cake a lovely orange colour, moistness, sweetness, and a bit of chewiness. Carrot cake is said to have originated in Europe during the middle ages when sugar was in short supply and carrots or beets were used instead since they were naturally sweet.

In India, depending on which part of the country you are in, you get different kinds of carrots. In Northern India, you get lovely purple carrots. We being in Mumbai, get the regular orange carrots throughout the year (you know the hybrid engineered variety that we often refer to as English carrots) and the red moist carrots at wintertime. And these local Asian red moist carrots are the ones we use for gajar halwa and even for carrot cake. Carrots have a lot of health benefits, which technically makes this cake a lot healthier than your regular cakes. And even if it being healthier turns out to be just an excuse, does it really matter? Homemade carrot cakes are delicious!

Now everyone has a family recipe for carrot cake. Here’s ours! Why not try this easy carrot cake recipe at home and have your family eat some delicious carrot cake too?

What Ingredients Do You Need For Carrot Cake?

To make carrot cake, you will require fresh red carrots, butter, sugar, maida or all-purpose flour, sojee or semolina, eggs, ginger powder, cinnamon powder, baking powder, salt, and raisins.

Note: If you don’t have red carrots, you can use the orange carrots, but in that case, increase the amount of sugar you add to the cake batter.

How To Make Carrot cake

Grate the carrots and keep them aside for later. Add room temperature butter to a vessel. Mix sugar with the butter and cream well.

Next, add the semolina. Then mix the maida with the baking powder and fine salt and add that as well.

Ginger powder and cinnamon powder come next. Add extra ginger powder for more spice.

Beat the eggs and add them to the cake mix. This carrot cake is dense, so there’s no need to separate the whites and the yolks.

Mix the batter well and lastly add the raisins and finally the grated carrots.

Prepare your cake tins by lining them with baking paper. As you can see, we keep the wrapping paper of butter slabs and use these to line our tins. It’s just common sense and economical.

Pour the cake batter into lined cake tins and bake in a preheated oven for about 50 minutes at 180 degrees Celcius or 356 degrees Fahrenheit. But adjust according to your weather and oven.

And your carrot cake is ready! We made a square cake, a round cake, and a bundt cake. This carrot cake tastes delicious when eaten warm fresh out of the oven! You can eat it as it is or cover it with buttercream icing or cream cheese frosting.

We had a bit of a mishap with the buttercream icing as the orange juice curdled it up. It still tastes yum though! Be careful when you’re adding any citrusy or acidic flavors to butter or curd for icing. If you add too much, it’s going to get funny-looking.

And here we have carrot cake with delicious cream cheese icing. I could just gobble it all up, can’t you? There’s no harm eating a carrot cake for dinner, said no one ever – sadly!

Recipe Pointers For Carrot Cake Recipe

• Grate the carrots and keep them ready before you start with the cake batter.
• You can skip the semolina and only use all purpose flour.
• If you don’t have red carrots, you can use the orange carrots, but in that case, increase the amount of sugar in the recipe a bit.
• You can replace the butter with a flavorless oil or use a mix of both.
• Walnuts are optional, but they add a little crunch to the cake.
• You can skip the raisins too if you like.
• It’s not essential to top the cake with cream cheese frosting, but if you do, it tastes yumm!
• Or you can serve warm carrot cake with some cool vanilla ice cream!
• You might also like this list of traditional Irish desserts!

Questions About carrot cake

Can I freeze Carrot cake?

Yes, of course! Packed in an air-tight container you can store carrot cake in the freezer for up to 4-6 months. Reheat before serving!

Does Carrot Cake need to be refrigerated?

Carrot cake can be kept out at room temperature for a day or two, but make sure it is refrigerated if you are keeping it for a longer period. Store in an air-tight container for about 1 week in a refrigerator.

Who invented Carrot cake?

According to food experts, people started using carrots in cakes during the middle ages in Europe when sugar was in poor supply. Carrots and beets were naturally high in sugar and the perfect alternative.

What Frosting goes best With Carrot Cake?

The most used frosting for carrot cake is cream cheese frosting that tastes just yum!

What other carrot recipes can I make?

You can try our Tomaro Carrot soup recipe and also delicious Indian Gajar Halwa.

Can I replace the Raisins in the cake?

Yes, the raisins in the cake can be replaced with pineapple or even grated coconut for their natural sweetness.

Other Recipes You Might Like

• Boros cookies
• Red Pumpkin Halwa (Kaddu Ka Halwa)
• Sali par eedu – Parsi eggs
• Easy Indian Custard Powder Halwa Recipe
• Homemade Tomato Carrot Soup Recipe