Carrot Cake Cookies

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Featuring cinnamon-vanilla dough, freshly shredded carrots, and a creamy homemade cream cheese frosting, these nut-free carrot cake cookies are the perfect way to sneak in your veggies while satisfying your sweet tooth!

Prep Time30

Cook Time30

Waiting Time1

Total Time2

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: American

Servings: cookies

Calories: 364kcal

Author: Katalin Nagy

Equipment

Ingredients

Carrot Cake cookie dough

150 g Unsalted butter at room temperature
100 g Granulated sugar
50 g Brown sugar
1 Egg at room temperature
1 teaspoon Vanilla extract
190 g All purpose flour
1 Teaspoon Salt
1 Teaspoon Baking soda
1 Teaspoon Cinnamon
170 g Carrot peeled and freshly shredded

Cream cheese frosting

230 g Cream cheese full fat (33%+) e.g. Philadelphia, use it cold
75 g Mascarpone full fat (41%+), use it cold
50 g Powdered sugar
¼ teaspoon Vanilla extract
orange and green gel food coloring for the carrot decoration

Metric - US Customary

Instructions

Carrot Cake cookie dough

Whip the room temperature butter with the granulated and brown sugar using an electric hand mixer for a few minutes until the mixture is light and fluffy.
Whip in the room temperature egg and vanilla until combined.
Sift the flour, salt, cinnamon and baking soda into the wet ingredients. Fold them together with the help of a rubber spatula.
Finally, fold in the grated carrots.
Prepare 2 baking pans with parchment paper.
Scoop the dough into 10-12 equal balls using an ice cream scooper and place them on a parchment-lined baking sheet, ensuring there's enough space for the cookies to spread. For best results, bake 5-6 cookies per sheet. Chill the dough for an hour before baking.
Pre-heat the oven to 175 C / 350°F (no fan).
After chilling for an hour, bake the cookies at 175°C / 350°F for 16-18 minutes.
Let the cookies rest for a few minutes, then carefully remove them from the parchment and let them cool on a cooling rack before frosting. The cookies will further set as they cool.

Cream cheese frosting

Using an electric hand mixer, whip together the cream cheese, mascarpone, vanilla, and sifted powdered sugar. Once the frosting reaches a fluffy, pipeable consistency, stop whipping to prevent it from becoming runny.

Assemble

Spread the cream cheese frosting evenly over the cooled carrot cake cookies, reserving about half a cup for the carrot decoration.
For the carrot decoration, color one portion of the cream cheese frosting green and the other orange using high-quality gel food coloring. Transfer the colored frostings into two separate piping bags fitted with a small round nozzle. Pipe carrot shapes on top of the cream cheese frosting, as shown in the picture.
Serve the carrot cake cookies fresh. Any leftovers can be covered and stored in the refrigerator for 1-2 days.

Notes

INGREDIENT NOTES:

Measure your ingredients with a digital scale for accuracy.
Use room temperature ingredients, e.g., egg and butter to make the cookies.
For the frosting, it is important to use high-fat content cold cream cheese and mascarpone to achieve a stable, not runny frosting.

TECHNIQUE NOTES:

Do not overmix the dough after adding the dry ingredients. Only fold it until thoroughly combined.
Respect the chilling time in the cookie recipe. Do not skip it, or the cookies might end up very flat.
Try not to overbake your cookies if you prefer them fudgy and gooey.
Use a round cookie cutter and gently apply circular motions right after the cookies are baked and still hot. This will help tighten the edges and give them a perfect round shape.
Cream cheese frosting is very easy to overwhip. When whipping, stop as soon as the mixture has reached a fluffy consistency and stiff peaks. It won't get stiffer after this point. In fact, if you overbeat it, it will only get runnier, and then it will break.
For the carrot decoration, only use concentrated high-quality gel food coloring, e.g., Americolor; we don't want to ruin the frosting with cheap supermarket food coloring.

Nutrition