Small Family Carrot Cake

This smaller Carrot Cake moist and delicious with carrots and pineapple, studded with crunchy walnuts and spicy with cinnamon makes a wonderful autumn dessert for family and friends.

Now that cooler weather is upon us (especially at night and early morning), it's not too hot to fire up the oven and start baking again.  This is a great way to use up an abundance of carrots you may have in your cupboard or fridge.

Here's a nice little Carrot Cake if you're looking for something that's not as large as a regular recipe.  I have two other recipes on this blog for Carrot Cake.  One is my wedding Carrot Cake and the other a vegan Orange Carrot Cake which is really nice but not traditional.  Some carrot cakes are quite large and feed up to 16 people.  We are down to two in our family unless the boys and their families are visiting so a smaller cake fits the bill.

Printable recipe at end of post.

Small Family Carrot Cake

• 1 cup flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 2 eggs
• ½ cup white sugar
• ½ cup brown sugar, packed
• ½ cup oil
• ½ teaspoon vanilla
• 1½ cups finely grated carrot
• ½ cup very well drained crushed pineapple
• ½ cup chopped nuts

How to make it:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease and flour an 8-inch square cake pan.

In small bowl, combine all dry ingredients, except sugars, and mix well.

In large bowl, beat eggs.  Add sugars and oil; beat well with electric mixer until smooth and creamy.

Stir in flour mixture and mix well.  Stir in carrots, pineapple and nuts; mix thoroughly.

Pour into pan.  Bake 40 minutes or until tester inserted in centre comes out clean.

Let cool.  Frost with cream cheese frosting.

Cream Cheese Frosting
With electric mixer, beat together 2 oz. cream cheese, 2 tablespoons butter and 1 teaspoon vanilla.  Gradually beat in enough icing sugar (about 1 cup) to give smooth spreadable consistency.

The ingredients for the carrot cake are ready to be mixed.

Combine the dry ingredients, except sugars, together.  A whisk does an excellent job mixing everything together.

In a large bowl beat eggs, add sugar and oil and beat until smooth and creamy.  Add the flour mixture and mix well.

Stir in the carrots, pineapple and nuts.

Mix everything together, thoroughly.

Grease and flour an 8-inch pan.  I usually skip the flour if I've lined the pan with parchment paper.  

Pour the batter into the prepared pan.  I used a 3-inch deep pan but a regular 8-inch pan works just as well.

Bake 40 minutes or until tester inserted in centre comes out clean. Let cool at least 10 minutes before turning out on cooling rack.  You can serve it straight from the pan if using a glass baking dish.

We celebrated Don's birthday in June and had the Small Family Carrot Cake as his birthday cake.  It was delicious!

A nice layer of Cream Cheese Frosting really gives a carrot cake that special taste.

Delicious and moist!

To print click on arrow upper right side.⇩