Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting topped with Walnuts

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This moist, delicious, super easy carrot cake is made in the food processor. The best part? It takes 5 minutes, from start to the oven!

This moist, delicious, easy carrot cake wasn’t exactly what I’d planned for today, but sometimes you just have to go with the flow.

There are times when the best-laid plans go to the dogs. I’ve been working on a delicious one-bowl, super easy cake that everyone’s gone crazy over. After tweaking and testing 5 times, it was perfect. All I needed was pictures, so I got up early this morning to make the wonderful cake for a photo shoot. I could hardly wait to share it with you today. Despite being 24˚F here in the North Carolina mountains, I jumped out of bed, put the easy cake together and popped it in the oven. Halfway into the baking time, the lights went out. No power. No oven. No cake.

But as I sat shivering in the cold house (24˚F outside) and my cake sat half baked in the oven, I was reminded of another amazingly easy cake that’s gotten buried in the Café archives. I decided to pull it out and make it myself (as soon as we have power again!). It’s one of our favorite cakes ever and is so darn easy that it’s almost ridiculous. I thought you might enjoy this Easy Carrot Cake as much as we do.

Yes! You might find it hard to believe but this easy carrot cake is made in the food processor. If you’re like me, you’ll be shocked at how quickly you can throw a cake together with this little kitchen workhorse and how delicious this recipe will turn out. The cake has a sweet, crisp crust and tender, moist crumb.

 

Although I’ve used my food processor for all kinds of kitchen tasks, I thought it would be fun to explore some new ways of putting it to work, so I started doing a little online research. I was quite intrigued with some of the recipes I found for making cakes in a food processor. Cake, really? I had a hard time believing a cake whirled up in just a few minutes would be as good as a traditional cake made with a stand mixer.
As I did a bit of research on food processor cakes, I came upon a somewhat strange recipe, simply called Consumer Reports Carrot Cake. The article explained that, quite a while back when Consumer Reports did a review on food processors, they included this cake recipe in the article. I probably would have passed right by it, except for a comment written by a reader: “‘This is always the cake my six grandsons request for their birthdays”.

Anytime I hear a proclamation like that, my curiosity is quite peaked, as I’m pretty certain it’s going to be a great recipe! So I made it. And then made it again, and again, and again. And at least two more times. I made bundt cakes, layer cakes, cupcakes and loaf cakes, all with this same recipe.

 

Ingredients
  • Preheat oven 350 degrees
Generously spray bundt pan with cooking oil and lightly dust with flour.
Cake Batter:
  • 1 box of Yellow Cake Mix
  • 3 eggs
  • 1 cup of water
  • 1/2 cup of applesauce
  • 2 cups of grated or food processed carrots.
  • Blend until combined and lump free.

 

METHOD
In a separate bowl add
4 oz. of Room temperature Fat Free Cream Cheese
1 tbsp of Sweetened Condensed Milk
3 tbsp of powdered sugar mixed with 2 1/2 tbsp. of water
With hand mixer, beat until smooth and creamy. Set aside
30 grams of chopped Walnuts, this is where you want to use your scale. You’ll get more pow for the points 🙂
Bake 45-50 minutes or until inserted skewer comes out clean, this one is tricky although skewer was clean mine could have done with 5 more minutes, ovens vary so check at 45 mins.
Let cool for 20 minutes before turning out onto chosen plate.
When ready to frost, make sure your frosting is thin enough to drizzle if it isn’t, you can microwave it for 10 seconds at a time until it is, don’t cook your cream cheese.
Frost or drizzle your cake any which way you want. Top with walnuts for a crunch that goes well with this moist cake and why not add some shredded carrots for a bit of color

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