Carrot Bundt Cake

• servings: 10 servings
• active time: 55 minutes
• total time: 1 hour 45 minutes

Ingredients

375 g cream cheese (room temperature)

225 g powdered sugar

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons milk (to thin out the frosting)

pecans (crushed, for topping)

140 g golden raisins

300 g all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

1/2 teaspoon salt

3 large eggs (room temperature)

150 g light-tasting oil (e.g. canola oil, avocado oil, etc.)

300 g brown sugar

125 g greek yogurt (room temperature)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

300 g carrots (peeled & finely shredded (about 3 medium carrots)

Directions

Cream Cheese Filling

Mix until creamy: In a medium bowl, add the cream cheese, powdered sugar, vanilla extract, and salt. Use an electric hand mixer to beat until very creamy and smooth. Set aside while you prepare the cake batter.

Carrot Cake

Prep: Preheat the oven to 350°F. Thoroughly grease a 10-cup bundt pan with softened butter, making sure to get into all the sharp corners and edges. Add a small handful of flour to the pan and knock it around the pan until the butter layer is completely coated with a thin layer of flour. Tap the excess flour out of the pan and discard. Set aside.

Soak raisins: In a small bowl, add the golden raisins and enough water to cover them. Set aside to soak while you make the batter.

Flour mixture: In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, cloves, and salt. Set aside.

Egg mixture: In a large mixing bowl, add the eggs, oil, brown sugar, greek yogurt, and vanilla extract. Use the same hand mixer to mix together on low speed until combined and smooth with no lumps of brown sugar.

Combine flour and egg mixtures: Add the flour mixture and whisk until just combined.

Fold in carrots and raisins: Add the shredded carrots. Drain away all the water from the golden raisins and add them as well. Fold together with a spatula until combined. Don't overmix.

Fill pan halfway: Add about 1/3 of the batter to your prepared bundt pan. I like using a cookie scoop to add the batter because it's easier to space out the thick batter around the pan.

Cream cheese filling: Transfer about 2/3 of the cream cheese filling to a piping bag and snip the tip off. Pipe the cream cheese filling on top of the carrot cake batter. Use an offset spatula to spread the cream cheese into an even layer. It's quite thick so just do it as best you can. Cover and store the remaining cream cheese mixture in the fridge until you're ready to frost the cake.

Fill pan: Add the rest of the carrot cake batter on top of the cream cheese layer.

Bake: Bake the cake for about 50-55 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle of the cake comes out clean. Let the cake cool in the pan on a wire rack for about 30 minutes. While it's still warm, invert the pan to release the cake onto the wire rack. Let the cake cool completely before transferring it to a serving dish and frosting.

Cream Cheese Frosting

Thin out cream cheese mixture: To the cream cheese mixture, add a tablespoon of milk at a time and mix with a hand mixer until it becomes fluid enough to very slowly drip off the beaters. Transfer the frosting to a piping bag and snip the tip off.

Frost cake: Pipe the frosting on top of the cake. Grasp the serving dish the cake is on and tap it against the counter a few times to help the frosting drip down the sides of the cake. Sprinkle the top of the cake with crushed pecans.

Nutrition

• Calories: 665 kcal
• Total Fat: 30 g
• Saturated Fat: 10 g
• Unsaturated Fat: 17 g
• Trans Fat: 0.1 g
• Cholesterol: 88 mg
• Sodium: 543 mg
• Total Carbohydrate: 92 g
• Dietary Fiber: 2 g
• Total Sugars: 63 g
• Protein: 9 g