Pumpkin Carrot Cake with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting

Cakes & Cupcakes
November 20, 2015
Cakes & Cupcakes
November 20, 2015

Pumpkin Carrot Cake with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting

  • Prep time: 30 min
  • Cook time: 30 min
  • Total time: 1 hr

If there was ever a cake-pocalypse and I was forced to save one cake from extinction, it would most definitely

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Pumpkin Carrot Cake with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting

Naked Pumpkin Carrot Cake

If there was ever a cake-pocalypse and I was forced to save one cake from extinction, it would most definitely be carrot cake. I’d grab it by the cake stand and run like the wind to safety. That is because carrot cake is my favorite. It’s moist, nicely textured, spiced, and flavorful. It’s chock full of delicious things like carrots, raisins, and coconut. And it’s (hopefully) slathered in a delectable cream cheese frosting.

Carrot cake is typically associated with spring, but I like to enjoy carrot cake all year around, which is why I came up with the best cake ever: Pumpkin Carrot Cake. It combines the texture of a soft and fluffy pumpkin bread with the pizazz of carrot cake. Instead of just adding cinnamon, I also put in cloves and nutmeg for added flavah.

The frosting for this carrot cake recipe is cinnamon cream cheese, rounding out the fall feel while complementing the pumpkin in the cake. Aaaand, it’s a naked cake! This is my first time making a naked cake, and it’s the only kind of cake I want to make from now on. No muss, no fuss. I love how it combines rustic with elegant. It’s casual, yet refined. And under that thin veil of frosting is a truly spectacular cake.

Naked Pumpkin Carrot Cake on cake stand

Tips on how to make carrot cake

The cake itself isn’t the tricky part of this recipe (actually, nothing about this pumpkin carrot cake recipe is tricky…). I guess I should say that the part where most people go wrong when making a homemade carrot cake is the frosting. More specifically, they think letting the cake layers cool before slapping on the frosting is wasted time.

Think again, my friends. Letting the cake layers cool completely to room temperature is key when making a cake. And because this homemade carrot cake is a naked cake, it’s even more important that you frost the cake when it’s cool. If you skip this step, your frosting will literally slide off the cake, which will make you sad, which will make me sad.

You’ll also want the butter and cream cheese to be room temperature when you make the cream cheese frosting, or else you’ll wind up with little chunks of butter throughout the mixture. Again, very sad stuff.

As long as you keep these few tips in mind, you’re bound to whip up a fab pumpkin carrot cake!

Naked Pumpkin Carrot Cake on plate

I’m partnering with Dixie Crystals for this post, so be sure to pop over to their site for mores recipes!

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Pumpkin Carrot Cake with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting

5 Stars 4 Stars 3 Stars 2 Stars 1 Star 5 from 2 reviews
  • Author: Sofi | Broma Bakery
  • Prep Time: 30 minutes
  • Cook Time: 30 minutes
  • Total Time: 1 hour
  • Yield: 16 servings
  • Category: dessert
  • Method: oben
  • Cuisine: american
  • Author: Sofi | Broma Bakery
  • Prep Time: 30 minutes
  • Cook Time: 30 minutes
  • Total Time: 1 hour
  • Yield: 16 servings
  • Category: dessert
  • Method: oben
  • Cuisine: american
Units:

Ingredients

for the cake

  • 1 1/2 cups shredded carrots
  • 1 cup pumpkin puree
  • 1 cup sweetened, shredded coconut
  • 1/ cup raisins
  • 1 1/2 cups Dixie Crystals Granulated Sugar
  • 3/4 cup vegetable oil
  • 4 large eggs, room temperature
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 2 cups all purpose flour
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 2 teaspoons baking soda
  • 1 tablespoon cinnamon
  • 1 teaspoon nutmeg
  • 1/4 teaspoon cloves
  • 1 teaspoon salt

for the frosting

  • 1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
  • 8 ounces cream cheese, softened
  • 4 cups Dixie Crystals Powdered Sugar
  • 2 teaspoons cinnamon
  • 1/2 cup pepitas, for garnish
  • 2 large cinnamon sticks, for garnish
  • 1/3 cup sweetened, shredded coconut, for garnish

Instructions

    1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour three 8 1/2-inch cake pans.
    2. In a large bowl, combine carrots, pumpkin, coconut, raisins, Dixie Crystals sugar, vegetable oil, eggs, and vanilla extract. In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and salt. Incorporate dry ingredients into wet, stirring until just combined.
    3. Pour batter into prepared pans. Bake for 30 minutes, then allow to chill completely before frosting.
    4. To make the frosting, whip butter and cream cheese until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add in powdered sugar and cinnamon and whip to combine, about 2 minutes.
    5. Place the first cake on a cake stand, then top with roughly 1 cup of frosting. Layer the second and third layers, frosting the same amount in between each. Frost edges of the cake with remaining frosting, then sprinkle coconut around the edges. Top with pepitas and cinnamon sticks.

This post was graciously sponsored by Dixie Crystals. All opinions are 100% my own. 

More easy cake recipes from Broma Bakery:

Peach Vanilla Bundt Cake with Peach Soaking Syrup

Six Pound Cinnamon Chocolate Chip Coffee Cake

30-Minute Chocolate Cake for Two

The Best Carrot Cake in the World

Dulce de Leche Banana Layer Cake

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  1. My husband said it’s probably the best cake I ever made. It is INMHO fabulous – your recipe, my time and energy 🙂 I did add 1/2 cup toasted chopped pecans to the batter. The cake is a LOT and felt of substantial weight once I had it frosted and decorated. Everyone loved it. Moist enough, sweet enough without being over the top. I, in particular, loved the crunch of the pepitas which I toasted as well. I used unsweetened toasted coconut flakes around the bottom as well. Love toastng things.
    I’m sure I’ll make it again as it will be requested. The hardest part is grating the carrots, but otherwise quite simple, really.
    Best carrot cake ever (with pumpkin!). Thank you!






  2. Greetings from Austin! I would love to try this recipe, but as Muhaya wrote below, there is no recipe available, either here or on the Dixie site. Is the recipe available anywhere else? Many thanks!

    • Hi Sarah–so sorry about that! It looks like Dixie has removed the recipe from their site. I’ve updated it to include the recipe on the blog post. Happy baking 🙂

  3. Hi I want to try and make this cake in a couple of days but when I put jump to recipe there is no recipe at all. It’s the pumpkin carrot cake with cinnamon cream cheese frosting

  4. Hi Sarah, I spent last night baking this cake feeling really excited but when my cake was baked, it hardly rose. definitely nothing Like your picture – it wasn’t tall and it wasn’t spongy at all. flavours were still good but I was really disappointed with how the cake looked. I don’t know what went wrong so I’d thought I should share with you 🙁 your cake looks really nice though, except my version rose like 2cm. and the batter definitely wasnt enough to make such three tall layers like in your picture.

    • Hi Sam,

      That’s a shame to hear! There are many factors that go into this. Did you use 8 inch cake pans? Using larger cake pans can make the cakes very thin. Still, they should’ve risen more, as this recipe has a lot of baking powder and baking soda to make sure that it rises despite the denser ingredients. My guess would be that your baking powder/ baking soda was a bit stale, causing the cakes not to rise as much.