Super moist and delicious carrot cake baked in one pan to make serving super simple! It’s packed full of carrots and cinnamon, studded with nuts and frosted with a simple cream cheese frosting. Feel free to dust the top with more cinnamon, chopped up nuts or even salted caramel sauce.

carrot cake sheet cake frosted with cream cheese frosting on a plate with a bite taken out

If you’re familiar with my carrot cake then yes, this is pretty much the same recipe baked in a single pan to make serving easier. I frosted it with a simple cream cheese frosting but you can also get a little more creative here.

You could drizzle some homemade salted caramel sauce on top, like I did for my viral carrot cake cookies, or browning the butter, like I did for the cupcakes. I even think a brown sugar glaze, like I used on my carrot cake loaf would be incredible, I’m definitely doing that next time.

Step-by-Step Instructions with Photos

Carrot cake is really quite simple, you’re just gonna combine all the wet ingredients, followed by the dry ingredients and then the carrots and any extra add-ins.

The most time consuming part is just shredding the carrots. If you have a Kitchen Aid, I recommend using a stand mixer attachment to make that much process quicker.

And as always, I recommend using a digital scale to measure out your ingredients, especially the dry ingredients like flour and nuts, etc.

You can see that I sliced my carrot cake into thinner, bar shapes and then piped cream cheese frosting on top. I was just trying to be fancy lol but you can certainly just frost the whole top of the cake and slice into 24 squares as usual.

Carrot Cake

Whisk together the flour, cinnamon, baking soda, baking powder and salt until they’re well combined.
Whisk together the oil with the sugar aggressively, for 2-3 minutes, until it lightens in color.
Whisk in the eggs and sour cream until they’re well combined.
Add the dry ingredients and fold just until they’re barely combined, leaving a few streaks of flour left.
Add the ground nuts, lemon zest and shredded carrots to the batter and fold until it’s all well combined.
Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for about 45ish minutes.

whisk in eggs and sour cream — whisk together oil and sugars

Cream Cheese Frosting

Make the frosting by creaming the butter and cream cheese together until they’re well combined and have lightened in color a bit.
Add the powdered sugar and salt and beat at a low speed just until the sugar is combined.
Scrape the edge of the bowl, add the vanilla and increase the speed to medium for a few minutes, beating until the frosting is smooth and fluffy.
If the frosting is too soft, just refrigerate it for 20-30 minutes before piping. Spread the frosting on top of the cooled cookie bars and dust with cinnamon.

cream cheese frosting finished whipping — add powdered sugar and mix until smooth

Customize:

If you don’t like the texture of the nuts, you can grind them up really small. I would add a tablespoon of flour to the food processor with the nuts if you’re grinding them up small (it can get sticky if the oils start to release, etc.)

If you need the carrot cake to be nut free, feel free to skip the nuts all together and maybe just add an extra tablespoon of flour to the batter instead.

You can also use other add-ins like shredded coconut or raisins if you’re into that sort of thing.

How to store carrot cake

After baking, the carrot cake can be stored at room temperature (preferably covered) for 1-2 days but after frosting it, make sure to refrigerate the cake.

I refrigerate the cake in an airtight container (usually sliced) for 3-4 days but if it’s longer, I would freeze it. Bring back to room temperature (or just slightly chilled) before serving.

Thanks so much for reading today’s post, if you have any questions just comment down below.

If you make my carrot cake, I’d love it if you left a star rating or a review for me!

As always, have a blessed day and happy baking!

Love, B

Carrot Cake Sheet Cake