Easy Carrot Cake with Orange Buttercream Frosting
Easter is on its way! April 5th to be exact, which means we’re in need of some serious desserts (because what family holiday is complete without dessert 😉 ). One of my all time favorite desserts is Carrot Cake, and Mom’s Easy Carrot Cake with Orange Buttercream Frosting is the absolute best.
As all of Mom’s recipes are, this one tastes amazing and is super easy to make. It starts with a boxed cake mix, but believe me you’d never be able to tell. One secret to making this cake amazing is the carrots – be sure to grate them extra fine so they get cooked all the way through and don’t disturb the texture of the cake. Other than that I know you’ll love this Easy Carrot Cake with Buttercream Frosting as much as I do!
Easy Carrot Cake with Orange Buttercream Frosting
Author: NorCal Coupon Gal
Recipe type: Dessert
This Easy Carrot Cake with Orange Buttercream Frosting is my hands down FAVORITE carrot cake recipe. I t starts with a boxed cake mix and ends up being a custom creation - you're guaranteed to love it!
Ingredients
Carrot Cake
- Solid vegetable shortening, for greasing the pans
- Flour for dusting the pans
- 1 pkg. yellow cake mix
- 1 pkg. (3.4 oz.) Vanilla Flavor Instant Pudding
- 4 eggs
- ⅔ cup orange juice
- ½ cup oil
- 2 tsp. ground cinnamon
- 3 cups grated carrots (5 medium carrots)
- ½ cup raisins
- ½ cup chopped walnuts or pecans
Orange Buttercream Frosting
- 8 tbsp. (1 stick) butter, at room temperature
- 3 ¾ cups confectioners’ sugar, sifted
- 3 – 4 tbsp. orange juice
- 2 tsps. Pure vanilla extract
Instructions
For the cake:
- Heat oven to 350ºF. Grease and flour two 9 inch cake pans.
- Place the cake mix, pudding mix, orange juice, oil, eggs and cinnamon in large bowl. Blend with an electric mixer on low speed for 1 minute.
- Stop the machine, scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula, increase the mixer speed to medium and beat two more minutes. The batter should be thick and well blended.
- Gently fold in the carrots, raisins and nuts with a rubber spatula.
- Divide the batter between the prepared pans, smoothing it out.
- Place the pans side by side on a rack in the center of the oven.
- Bake the cakes until they are golden brown and spring back when lightly pressed, 30 – 35 minutes.
- Remove pans from the oven and place on wire racks to cool for 10 minutes. Run a dinner knife around the edges of each layer and invert each onto a rack, then invert each again onto another rack so the cakes are right side up.
- Allow them to cool completely.
- While the cakes are cooling, prepare your frosting and then frost your cake.
For the frosting:
- Place butter in large mixing bowl. Blend with electric mixer on low speed until fluffy, about 30 seconds.
- Stop the machine and add the confectioners’ sugar, 3 tbsp. orange juice and vanilla. Blend with mixer on low speed until sugar is incorporated.
- Increase the speed to medium and beat until light and fluffy, about 1 – 2 minutes. Blend in up to 1 tbsp. more orange juice if frosting seems too stiff.
- Frost cooled carrot cake generously.
- Enjoy!