A Less Sweet Carrot Cake

If you love carrot cake but lean towards less sweet carrot cake, here's one I recommend. Baked in a 9-inch pan, it's a smaller cake. Proportionately, it has a bit less sugar than some of the most popular recipes. But honestly, what I think is the most interesting thing about this cake is the Lorann Butter Vanilla Bakery Emulsion.

This cake also has a lot of add-ins including coconut, nuts and pineapple which enhance the sweetness and texture.  For this cake, I'm not sure I'd leave any of those things out since the cake itself is not that sweet to begin with.  The nuts add a lot of flavor, too.  Speaking of which, my new favorite thing to add flavor to carrot cake is this LorAnn butter emulsion.

Lorann Butter Flavored Bakery Emulsion

I bought this at Michael's, but I've also  seen it at Hobby Lobby and on LorAnn's website.  It doesn't taste or smell anything like artificial butter extract, and you can't really discern what it will taste like just by smelling it because it doesn't have a strong aroma.  To really get the full effect, you have to bake it into something. You could just swap out some of the oil for butter. But the butter flavored emulsion lets you use all oil and still have the flavor of butter.

Here's the recipe.  It's not a low sugar cake, just a little less sweet than some others.  I thought I'd put it out there because I've read reviews from people who think the traditional version is too sweet.

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Recipe

Less Sweet Carrot Cake

Anna

Carrot Cake in a 9 Inch Square Pan

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Prep Time 10 minutes mins

Cook Time 40 minutes mins

Total Time 50 minutes mins

Course Dessert

Cuisine American

Servings 8

Ingredients

 

• 3 large eggs
• ¾ cup vegetable oil
• 1 cup granulated sugar or evaporated cane juice crystals
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon butter flavored emulsion optional
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 1 ¼ teaspoons cinnamon
• 1 ½ cups unbleached all-purpose flour (190-200 grams)
• 1 cup grated carrots (100 grams)
• 1 cup sweetened flaked coconut
• 8 oz can of crushed pineapple drained and dried
• ½ cup toasted and finely chopped pecans

Cream Cheese Frosting

• 4 tablespoon unsalted butter, softened (56 grams)
• 8- ounce package cream cheese, softened (225 grams)
• 1 teaspoons vanilla best quality
• 1 ¼ cups confectioners’ sugar or add more to taste

Instructions

 

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour a 9 inch square metal cake pan. If using glass, preheat to 325 F.
• In a mixing bowl, stir or gently whisk together the eggs, oil, sugar, vanilla, butter flavor, baking soda, and salt. Stir in the flour, then add the carrots, coconut, pineapple and pecans. Pour the batter in the pan and bake for about 40 minutes to 45 minutes or until the top is nice and brown and a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Let cool in the pan and then frost
• To make the frosting, beat the cream cheese and butter with an electric mixer until creamy. Beat in the vanilla, then beat in the sugar. Spread over the cake. Serve the cake straight out of the pan.

Keyword Carrot Cake, Less Sweet

Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!