Carrot Pound Cake
This Carrot Pound Cake is so flavorful and decadent with carrots and spices, coconut, pecans, crushed pineapple, and a hint of brown sugar.
We love carrot cake recipes and have made many over the years, including our popular layered Carrot Cake recipe from scratch, our carrot cake from cake mix, maple carrot cake, and even a carrot cheesecake cake. Today's carrot pound cake is more dense and rich than a layered carrot cake, but has all of the wonderful flavor!
Table of Contents
Ingredients
You can find the full ingredient list along with instructions a little further down in this post. Here's a quick look:
- Unsalted Butter (we add the salt separately)
- Brown Sugar and White Sugar
- Eggs, room temperature
- Cake Flour contains less protein, creating a more tender crumb
- Baking Powder and Salt
- Spices: Cinnamon & ground ginger
- Buttermilk's acidity lowers gluten formation
- Vanilla Extract
- Grated Carrots (don't use pre-grated as they are too dry)
- Chopped Pecans
- Sweetened Flaked Coconut (we like Bakers brand). We use sweetened because unsweetened is more dry & chewy.
- Crushed Pineapple, drained
*In addition to the above ingredients, we also topped our cake with our favorite easy cream cheese frosting.
How to Make Carrot Pound Cake
You can find the full, printable recipe further down in this post. Here is a quick look at our steps!
First, we preheated the oven and prepared our tube pan (your favorite bundt pan is fine)! Go ahead and measure out your ingredients and set them to aside.
Next, we mixed the butter until smooth, and added our brown and white sugar, mixing until lightened and fluffy (about 4-5 minutes).
We added in the room temperature eggs, one at a time. Then, add the dry ingredients (cake flour, baking powder, salt, and spices) and wet ingredients (buttermilk & vanilla extract) alternately, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients. (We like to do three additions of dry ingredients alternating with two additions of wet.)
Finally, it is time for the star ingredients--gently stir in the grated carrots, crushed pineapple (drained), chopped pecans, and sweetened coconut.
After stirring in the final ingredients, scoop the batter into the prepared bundt pan and bake for 1 hour and 5-10 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean or with just a few crumbs attached. Allow the cake to cool, still in the pan, on a wire rack for ten minutes. before turning out.
*Once the cake had cooled completely, we frosted the top with a simple cream cheese frosting. We halved our usual recipe, using cream cheese, powdered sugar, butter, a pinch of salt, and vanilla.
Once our cake had cooled completely, we piped our cream cheese frosting in rows of rosettes and shells (using a 1M piping tip). Frost it however you like! Cream cheese and carrot cake is such a delicious combination.
Here's our finished carrot pound cake!
Thanks so much for stopping by today. We hope that you give this homemade Carrot Pound Cake recipe a try!
We have so many more pound cakes and bundt cakes to share with you in our cake recipes section, as well as many more carrot cakes & light and fruity cake recipes.
Carrot Pound Cake
Ingredients
For the Cake Batter
- 1½ cups unsalted butter, softened (339g) (This is equivalent to 3 sticks)
- 2 cups sugar (400g)
- 1 cup light brown sugar (200g)
- 5 large eggs, room temperature (place in a bowl of warm water for 5 minutes to speed up the process).
- 3½ cups cake flour (399g) We used Swan's Down.
- ½ teaspoon baking powder (2g)
- ½ teaspoon salt (3g)
- 2½ teaspoons ground cinnamon (5g)
- ¾ teaspoon ground ginger (2g)
- 1 cup buttermilk (235g)
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract (8g)
- 2¼ cups freshly grated carrots (small pieces) (200g) (Don't use the packaged pre-shredded carrots as they are too dry.)
- ¾ cup sweetened flaked coconut
- 1 8 oz can crushed pineapple, drained (Put in strainer and let the liquid drain off... I press with a fork to remove not all, but a bit more of the liquid).
- ¾ cup chopped pecans
Cream Cheese Frosting
- ½ cup unsalted butter, softened to room temperature (113g) (This is equivalent to one stick)
- 8 oz cream cheese, softened to room temperature
- 1 teaspoons vanilla extract (4g)
- ¼ teaspoon salt (1g)
- 3-3 ½ cups powdered sugar (345g)
Instructions
- Grease and flour a tube pan. (Ours has a 12 cup baking capacity).
- Preheat the oven to 325℉
For the Cake
- In a separate bowl whisk the cake flour, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger, and salt to combine. Set aside for later.
- Wet Ingredients- In a medium measuring cup or bowl, combine the buttermilk and vanilla. Set aside for later.
- Measure out the chopped nuts, coconut, drained pineapple, and grate 2 ¼ cups of carrots. Set these add-ins aside for the last step.
- Using an electric mixer (paddle attachment if using a stand mixer), mix the butter in your mixing bowl on medium speed until smooth. Next, gradually add the white and brown sugar and mix until light and fluffy for 4-5 minutes.
- Add the eggs one at a time to the butter & sugar mixture, blending after each until the yolk is incorporated.
- With the mixer on low speed, add the flour mixture alternately with the buttermilk/vanilla mixture to the butter/sugar/egg mixture in the mixing bowl. Begin and end with the dry ingredients. I do three additions of dry, alternating with two additions of wet. Mix just until combined.
- Finally, stir in the shredded carrots, drained pineapple, coconut, and chopped pecans.
- Scoop the Batter into the prepared bundt pan.
- Bake at 325 degrees for 1 hour and 5-10 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. *Baking times may vary depending on the type of pan, oven, etc. Peek in as the end time approaches and adjust as needed.
- Allow to cool in the pan for 10 minutes before turning out.
- Allow the cake to cool completely before frosting. *The cream cheese frosting is optional but we highly recommend it! Most layered carrot cakes are filled & frosted with cream cheese frosting- the flavors go really nicely together. **Just note that if using the frosting, the cake will need to be refrigerated.
Cream Cheese Frosting
- Add the softened butter to the bowl of your mixer. Beat on low to medium speed until the butter is smooth.
- Cut the softened cream cheese into pieces and add to the butter, along with the salt, mixing at low to medium speed until incorporated.
- Add the vanilla. Gradually add the powdered sugar mixing on low speed until blended.
- Increase mixing speed slight, mixing until a big more fluffy. If it becomes too soft, chill before using to thicken.
- This frosting will pipe best if used while still chilled. You can make it in advance, refrigerate and when ready to use let it soften slightly (do not microwave) and remix.
- Frost the top of the *cooled* pound cake, or pipe on the frosting as we did (We used a 1M piping tip to pipe shells and rosettes over the top).
Storage
- This cake should be stored under a cake dome or in an airtight container in the refrigerator (if you topped it with cream cheese frosting). For the best flavor and texture, remove from the refrigerator 2-3 hours before serving to allow the cake time to warm and soften.
Notes
Loved This Recipe?!
your cakes look really good but I need recipes that dont use so much butter. its become soo expensive!
do any of your cake recipes use less butter and maybe oil or a mix of both? I always thought using some oil makes for a moister cake.
Hi Jody, You can sub shortening 1:1 for butter in baking, or if you want some butter sub half the butter called for in the cake recipe with shortening. I hope that helps keep costs down so you can still enjoying baking :-)
Hi Jody! Pound cakes have more butter than the usual layer cake or bundt cake recipe, we have many, many options in our recipes section. However if you are wanting pound cake, you can experiment with shortening as MsGF said, or you can try halving the recipe and using a loaf pan instead.
Yummy! What's not to love about this! :-)
Fantastic as always! Thanks ladies :-)