Mini Carrot Cakes

5 from 15 votes

Mini Carrot Cakes with silky smooth cream cheese frosting are the perfect size for one person and have a moist, melt-in-your-mouth texture and cute piped carrot decoration. They're one of my favorite desserts!

Prep Time30

Cook Time30

Total Time1

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: American

Servings:

Calories: 636kcal

Author: Katalin Nagy

Equipment

Ingredients

Carrot cake

220 g Vegetable oil
150 g Granulated sugar
100 g Brown sugar
3 Egg at room temperature
250 g All purpose sifted
1 teaspoon Baking powder
1 teaspoon Baking soda
2 teaspoon Cinnamon
½ teaspoon Salt
230 g Carrot peeled and freshly shredded

Cream Cheese Frosting

460 g Cream cheese full fat (33%+) e.g. Philadelphia, use it cold
150 g Mascarpone full fat (41%+), use it cold
60 g Powdered sugar sifted
½ teaspoon Vanilla extract
orange and green gel food coloring for the carrot decoration

Metric - US Customary

Instructions

Make the carrot cake

Preheat your oven to 175°C (350°F) and either grease or line a 28x40 cm (11x16 inch) sheet pan with parchment paper.
Using an electric hand mixer whip the room temperature eggs, oil, granulated sugar, and brown sugar together for 1-2 minutes until smooth and well combined.
Sift the dry ingredients—flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt—into the wet mixture. Gently fold them in, then fold in the shredded carrots.
Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake at 175°C (350°F) for about 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
Let the carrot sheet cake cool to room temperature before cutting the mini carrot cakes out.

Cream cheese frosting

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

Assemble

Using an approximately 8 cm (3 inch) diameter cookie cutter, cut out 14 circles from the carrot cake.
Transfer the cream cheese frosting into a piping bag fitted with a Wilton 1M piping tip. Pipe a layer of frosting onto one cake circle, then place another circle on top. Pipe more cream cheese frosting on top of the second circle.
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 mini cakes 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.
All cake ingredients must be at room temperature to properly emulsify.
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:

Baking this cake takes 25 minutes in my oven. However, you should focus on the texture, not the time. Apply the toothpick test (it should come out clean) to avoid overbaking your cake - that would result in a dry texture.
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.
The recipe can be made in a muffin pan or mini bundt pan as well and then you apply frosting on top of the muffins or mini bundt cakes.

Nutrition