Carrot Cake Traybake!
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A delicious, easy, and moreish carrot cake traybake with cream cheese frosting and chopped nuts!
Carrot cake
So, this may be controversial, but carrot cake is my favourite flavour cake. I know, I know, I say everything is my favourite but I do genuinely adore a good chunky slice of carrot cake.
So… it’s time for a carrot cake traybake! Easter time is usually full of chocolate and such, which I obviously adore.. but it’s not to everyone’s taste. I get that, and I accept that, and to be honest… I love carrot cake. I based this recipe on my carrot cake recipe, and it’s just so good! Not trying to blow my own trumpet of course
Traybake cakes
It’s such a versatile recipe, that I thought I would make it a bit differently by making it into a traybake! Traybake cakes aren’t something I have done a lot of, but to be honest they are SO much easier than a layer cake! You just have to show it into the tin, bake it, and slather on the decoration! No fancy layering or piping required.
I didn’t quite double my carrot cake recipe as it would have been too much for the tin, but its an ‘increased’ version which is ideal. I literally use a traybake tin for this as it was the right size, but any traybake style tin is good. You will just want it to be a similar size to the one I have used.
My chocolate fudge traybake cake has always been so popular, along with my school cake… a traybake tin is so popular for bakes and so versatile for recipes that I just really recommend grabbing one.
The cake
The cake itself is so light, and so (I hate to use the word) ~moist~, it is just delicious. Honestly I think carrot cake is one of my favourite cakes, if not my actual favourite, so I devour far too many pieces when I make this recipe. And you know, its got carrots and raisins in so it’s clearly good for you.
The recipe uses an oil base for the sponge, along with a mix of brown sugar, eggs, flour, bicarb, and then the flavours. I add a little orange zest because I adore orange in the sponge of a carrot cake, it’s got the carrots (obviously), some raisins as mentioned above, and then the spices. I wanted to make my carrot cake nice and warm as always so I put in some mixed spice, ginger and cinnamon.
This mixture is so easy to mix together in a bowl with a spoon or spatula. Honestly, you don’t need to use a mixer for a carrot cake, you just need a large bowl. I tend to mix the wet ingredients together first, and then I add the dry and mix until just combined.
Cream cheese frosting
I did make this slightly different to my carrot cake however and used a cream cheese frosting like the one in my red velvet cake. I thought a carrot cake traybake would need a bit more jazzing up, and the cream cheese frosting is ideal. Its silky, its smooth, and it tastes damn good.
Often people can have problems with making a cream cheese frosting and its often down to over mixing, or the water content of the cream cheese. Some countries cream cheese has a higher water content, and even different brands do. If you feel like yours is extra specially water, you can try and squeeze some out before adding to the butter.
When mixing the frosting, you want to be gentle. You really can’t over mix it otherwise you might have a sloppy mess! Either way though, because the cake will have to be stored in the fridge, it’ll firm the frosting up somewhat anyway! And then with the addition of the crunch of the nuts, its DELICIOUS.
Make sure to use full-fat cream cheese, leave out the spices if you don’t fancy it, but either way.. just follow the recipe and trust me you’ll love the frosting.
Recipe adaptations
You can see in the pictures how delicious it looks, but it is definitely versatile. Add more nuts, no nuts, add more raisins, or no raisins… its entirely up to you. If you wanted to use a buttercream topping so it doesn’t have to be kept in the fridge, then you can easily use the one from the original carrot cake recipe. It’s the best thing to do if you want it to be out at a party for example or you have to travel with it!
I swapped up and adapted the recipe in March 2024, and the only difference was the cream cheese frosting. I will say I really do prefer my new cream cheese frosting recipe which you can find here, and the one on this post is a delicious spiced version for this traybake.
Tips & Tricks
- I use this traybake tin for my cakes
- The raisins are optional, or interchangeable with nuts if you prefer
- This cake will last for 3 days in the fridge
- The cake can freeze for 3 months
- If you need to have the cake at room temperature for any length of time, you can switch the frosting to buttercream to make it safe
Carrot Cake Traybake!
Ingredients
Cake
- 300 ml sunflower oil
- 5 medium eggs
- 350 g light brown sugar
- 500 g grated carrots (grated weight)
- 150 g raisins
- Zest of 2 oranges
- 400 g self raising flour
- 2 tsps bicarbonate of soda
- 3 tsps mixed spice
- 1.5 tsps ground ginger
- 1.5 tsps ground cinnamon
Frosting
- 125 g unsalted butter (room temperature)
- 125 g icing sugar
- 250 g full-fat cream cheese
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/2 tsp mixed spice
- 1/2 tsp ground ginger
- 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
Extras
- 100 g chopped nuts
- carrot decorations
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 180ºc/160ºc fan and line a 9x13” tin with parchment paper
- Add the oil, eggs, sugar and carrots to a bowl and mix
- Add the raisins, orange zest and mix
- Add the flour, bicarb and spices and mix
- Pour into the tin and bake for 50-55+ minutes and leave to cool in the tin
- Beat the butter on its own until smooth
- Add the icing sugar and spices and beat until smooth
- Add the cream cheese and mix again
- Decorate the cake with the frosting, and sprinkles and chopped nuts if you fancy
Notes
- This recipe will last in the fridge for 3+ days
- This can freeze for 3+ months
- The raisins are optional, or interchangeable with nuts
- I use this baking tin for my cake
- Here is an in-depth post about cream cheese frosting if you need extra help
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J x
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My go to carrot cake recipe which never fails me. So tasty and easy to make. Always needs a little longer in the oven than advised, could just be my oven. Thanks for a great recipe.
Hi Jane,
Recipe looks amazing, going to attempt it tomorrow! Wanted to ask about tins; do you think it will bake ok in a pyrex baking dish, rather than a tin? Only one I’ve got that is the right dimensions….What do you think?
Thanks, and love the website!
Tori
Love this recipe. Had to leave the cake in to cook a lot longer than said in the instructions but nothing the me and the skewer test can’t handle 🙂
Took much longer to cook. Probably 50 mins
Hi, love both this & the cake recipie! Great success with both. Can I use the traybake quantity to make a deeper carrot cake? Obviously would need to cook longer I assume?! Also if I add double the cinnamon & mixed spice do I need to take anything out?
Hiya! It depends on the tin you do want to use, but yes basically more mixture is just a deeper cake that takes longer to bake (but I have no idea on the timings because again depends on the tin!) But no, just increase the spices to the levels you prefer!! x
Hi Jane! If I was to half this recipe for 8” tin how many eggs would I need to use?
Thankyou:))
I would use 3 medium!
Awesome cake and super easy! Been looking for a tray bake to please the masses that gives proper high slice as prefer the cake to frosting ratio of a square slice. Will be making for all the big celebrations we have to catch up on. Thanks
Hi Jane can you substitute the orange zest with orange extract? Thank you and can’t wait to try this!
Yes! I would use 1 tsp x
Hi, please could you advise if this could be frozen.
Thanks,
Caroline
Hello!
My family love this cake but the portion size is massive for us! Can I half the ingredients to make a smaller mixture/batch or would this not work?
Thanks!x
If you have a 9″ square you can use about 2/3 of the recipe, and if you have an 8″ square you can use half. Baking times will reduce! x
So moist and delicious! Loved by everyone! I put in extra mixed spice just because I like it. Thankyou for another amazing recipe!
Hi, the cake is fab but a bit big for our family. Can i freeze it with the frosting on? Thanks Joan
Yes you can xx
Loved this traybake but the frosting didn’t work well, it became quite lumpy but then you can’t over mix or as you say it gets runnier(though still tasted fab). I tried your other back to basic frosting for cupcakes and it worked beautifully, so beating the butter and icing sugar then adding the cream cheese seemed to give a much better result.