A couple of weeks ago, the darling ladies from Six Sisters’ Stuff linked their Carrot Cake recipe up to the Mouthwatering Monday Linky and ever since then, I’ve been absolutely craving Carrot Cake.
Craving.
The kind of craving that gets down into your belly, burrows into your subconscious and pops up at the most random of times.
I do not have a must have carrot cake recipe in my repertoire, so I was all set to make theirs, and then I got a little goodie in the mail.
That is my friend Lori’s, aka The Recipe Girl, new cookbook. I have stalked admired Lori’s blog for years, and I got to meet her this past year when I went to Oregon for the Harry and David trip. Lori and I sat together a couple of nights at dinner and I am thrilled to say she is just as delightful, warm, funny, smart and welcoming as she is on her blog. Lori is completely down to earth, and I absolutely adore her.
I was overjoyed when Lori announced her cookbook, I was giddy when she told me she was sending me an advanced copy, and I was beside myself when it came. Not only are the recipes unbelievable, the photographer for her cookbook is Matt Armendariz and he is my absolute favorite food photographer, plus he’s cute as a button and sweeter than pecan pie.
BACK TO CARROT CAKE 🙂
I was flipping through Lori’s Cookbook
banana-carrot cake cupcakes with cinnamon-cream cheese frosting
Do you need a moment?
Go ahead, stare at the picture for a minute – it’s stunning.
I literally grabbed my keys from their hook, jumped in my van, ran in the store, snagged the ripest bananas I could find, paid for them and set to making these.
Let me add a little PSA here people: Read recipes all the way through before starting on them. I’m totally blaming it on the drool-worthy photos (I’m looking at you, Matt)
If you don’t read the recipe all the way through, you might find yourself sans a key ingredient, such as buttermilk. (sigh)
Luckily, I know how to *fake* buttermilk, so a crisis was averted
I love that Lori added a footnote to this recipe for making it into a cake instead of cupcakes, because I wasn’t in a cupcake mood, and I haven’t unpacked my piping bag and tips and I adamantly will NOT use the plastic baggie piping shortcut because we should just say no to icing that looks like swirls of… well, y’all know. /tangent
This recipe is really, really easy to make – it smells amazing even when just in the preparation stage – sifting together the cinnamon and dry ingredients made my kitchen smell sooo yummy!
There are so many wonderful things about this recipe: bananas, carrots, cinnamon, sugars, buttermilk …
This is hands down the most delicious carrot cake that I’ve ever had.
EVER.
I have to share a little funny thing that happened while I was in the photographing stage of this recipe: I was losing light in the kitchen while trying to photograph this, and I wanted to have it to share with y’all today – so I opened the blinds on the big window by the staircase and set up everything on the landing on the stairs.
Princess and 3 girls from the neighborhood came running in the house, turned the corner to come up the stairs and stopped dead in their tracks. I swear y’all – you could hear the squeaking of their shoes as they stopped.
Friend 1: “OOOOOO that is sooo pretty”
Friend 2: “Ummmm…. Mrs. Rachel, what are you doing?”
Friend 3: ………………..
Princess: “Oh, that’s what my mom does. She cooks, takes pictures of it, and tells people on the internet all about it”
The girls were silent for a moment as they pondered this, then they shrugged and ran back outside. I love kids. 🙂
Nathan agreed that this was out of this world delicious.
Monkey gave it two thumbs up, and licked the frosting bowl – CLEAN.
Princess – picky, picky princess even loved it.
Lori, this cake is simply wonderful. It’s moist, tender, delicious and the subtle notes of cinnamon throughout the cake and the frosting… oh. my. stars, friend. You knocked this one out of the park!
I could wax poetic about this cake, the frosting, the combination of them and about Lori, but I’ll stop because by now you’re probably drooling and dying for the recipe.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Order The Recipe Girl Cookbook
Recipe Girl’s Banana-Carrot Cake with Cinnamon-Cream Cheese Frosting
Ingredients
- Recipe Shared with Permission from Lori Recipe Girl
Cake
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons baking soda
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 1/2 cups granulated white sugar
- 3 large eggs
- 1/2 cup buttermilk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 1/2 cups finely grated carrots about 3/4 pound
- 1 cup mashed ripe banana 2 large or 3 medium bananas
- 8 tablespoons 1 stick unsalted butter melted and cooled slightly
Frosting
- 12 ounces cream cheese at room temperature
- 8 tablespoons 1 stick unsalted butter at room temperature
- 1 pound powdered sugar sifted
- 2 tablespoons packed light brown sugar
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/2 cup pecans chopped, optional
Instructions
Cake
- Pre-heat the oven to 350°F - spray 9X13 pan with nonstick spray**
- Sift together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. Set aside
- In a large bowl, use an electric mixer to combine the sugar and eggs. Mix until it looks like the mixture has about tripled in volume, 3 to 4 minutes.
- Mix in the buttermilk and vanilla. Stir in the carrots and banana.
- Add in the dry ingredients and stir until just incorporated into the batter.
- Add the butter and stir until it is mixed into the batter.
- Pour the batter into the prepared baking dish.*
- Bake 35 to 40 minutes*
Frosting
- In a medium bowl, use an electric mixer to combine the cream cheese and butter. Add the sugars, vanilla and cinnamon. Spread a thick layer of frosting onto the cooled cake*. Sprinkle with chopped pecans if desired.
Notes
This is the best carrot cake that I've ever had.
Now I want a piece of carrot cake! That looks so good! And I love the story about your daughter and her friends and you taking pictures of the food. Oh the things we do to get good food photos. 🙂
I just made my first carrot cake last week (it is one of my husband’s favorite things). It was really yummy (I’ve not always been much of a fan). This sounds like a great one to try next. Love the idea of the banana in it.
Carrot Cake is one of those things I don’t think of, but love! Hope you try the recipe AND buy Lori’s cookbook – it’s dee-vine! <3
Thanks so much, Rachel for featuring one of the recipes from my cookbook. Much appreciated, and I’m so glad you liked it! XO
Oh I love aadding cinnamon to cream cheese frosting – added it to fresh whipped cream to top moist delicious chocolate cake… the other day and my guests SWOONED!
THanks for sharing this recipe it does look divine!
Ummm, you add the flour after the butter? I am literally halfway through making this. Had never whipped my eggs and sugar to triple. Looks amazing! Will post later to say how it turns out! This cookbook does look fun!
THE BEST EVER!! Better than carrot cake, better than banana bread. It was gone in 3 days with only 3 people eating it!
I used some maple C&R cheese frosting I already had in the freezer. It was delicious too.
I tried your recipe with a few extras and adaptations… OMG yum! I took the cake to work (hubby only eats chocolate cake boo!) and our fancy baking staff member was stunned.
I didn’t have buttermilk but substituted it for a cup and a half of runny organic yoghurt drink with honey, added 1/2 tsp of ginger and mixed spice with the cinnamon, and iced with a chocolate chilli ganash (yoghurt instead of cream in the ganash). Too good! I want to bake more now!
Can’t wait to taste it! Exactly what I was looking for to use up old bananas and loads of carrots. Note: adding the flour is somewhere in the process is naturally assumed…but not stated in the directions. Suggest alternating it with the liquid mixture, but whatever the cookbook states!
This cake is soooo good! I was looking for a banana cake receipe and stumbled across this one. It is so simple to make and bakes perfectly as a cake. I was amazed at how yummy the cream cheese frosting was too! ( I am not a huge fan of cream cheese frosting, but this receipe has changed my mind!) I took the cake to work and it was gone before lunch! Everyone is raving about it!
This receipe is a keeper and it will be used time and time again! Thanks!
I’m so thrilled to hear that!! Thank you so much for taking the time to comment and let me know! Have a wonderful day!
doesn’t say anything about refrigeration
Hi Mike,
I’ve made this recipe several times and have left it out overnight without any issues, but if you want to refrigerate it, you can. This is so good that it rarely lasts through the next day 🙂 I checked Lori’s cookbook and there aren’t any notes about refrigeration for this recipe.
Took this cake out of the oven about an hour ago and the house smells fabulous! Thanks for sharing the recipe.
However, like a couple of other commenters (which I wish I had read before I made the cake so I would have been aware of the problem), the lack of a direction as to when to add the flour is quite confusing. I ended up adding it at the end, after following your directions carefully then realizing that the flour mixture was still on the countertop. I don’t have Lori’s book (yet!), so I don’t know what she recommends. In any case, it would be very helpful for future readers if you update your recipe here to include an instruction for adding the flour mixture at the appropriate time, whenever that is.
Thanks, Anne! Hope y’all loved it. I have edited the recipe previously to add the flour back in, but for some reason it didn’t save. It’s done! Thank you! Have a delicious week!
The cake is delicious! I confess that I added some plumped raisins, and next time I might toss in some walnuts, too, for a bit more texture and flavor. But the recipe is definitely a keeper. Thanks again! And thanks for updating the instructions, too. 🙂
That sounds delicious, Anne! Thanks for sharing!