Maple Carrot Cake

Calling all carrot cake lovers, you are going to fall in love with this Maple Carrot Cake recipe!

Moist maple carrot cake layers are glazed with maple syrup and frosted with maple cream cheese frosting for an amazing dessert that is sure to become a favorite!

This Maple Carrot Cake is based on our tried and true homemade Carrot Cake Recipe, but the addition of maple extract, maple syrup glaze, and maple cream cheese frosting really brings it to another level of deliciousness.

While this would be an amazing layer cake no matter what time of year, the maple flavor makes it perfect for fall and winter celebrations, fall birthday cakes, and more! (You can find a full roundup of our favorite fall cakes here: The Best Fall Cake Recipes!)

Table of Contents

How to Make a Maple Carrot Cake

You can find the full, printable maple carrot cake recipe further down in this post, but here is a quick rundown of our steps!

The mixing process and order is a bit different than most of our other cake recipes. For instance, the electric mixer is just used to combine the first group of ingredients, and after that, everything is stirred in and incorporated. Another difference is that there is no butter in this recipe-- only vegetable oil.

It's a very simple cake recipe to follow, but shredding the carrots, chopping the pecans, draining the pineapple, etc. adds on a few minutes! It's totally worth it. I promise, you are going to love this recipe.

Preheat and Prepare the Pans: Preheat oven to 350 degrees, grease and flour three 8 inch cake pans (we also line the pans with parchment to prevent sticking).
Flour Mixture: Whisk together for 30 seconds the flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt. Set Aside.

Sugar, Eggs, Oil, Extracts: In the bowl of your mixer, add 2 cups sugar , 4 eggs, 1 cup oil, 3 teaspoons maple extract, 1 teaspoons vanilla extract. Mix 2 to 3 minutes at medium speed until well blended and light colored.

Flour Mixture and Add-Ins: With a spoon (or rubber spatula) stir in the flour until moistened, then add the carrots, pecans crushed pineapple and coconut.

Divide the batter between the three prepared 8 inch cake pans.

Time to Bake!: Bake 33-35 minutes at 350 degrees or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Baking times may vary- peek in around the 30 minute mark and adjust time as needed.
Cooling: Allow the cakes to cool in their pans on a wire rack for about 10 minutes before turning out.

Maple Cream Cheese Frosting

There's nothing like cream cheese frosting with carrot cake! For this recipe, we changed things up a bit to add an extra boost of maple to our cake, with a maple cream cheese frosting!

This recipe is based on our favorite easy cream cheese frosting recipe, but with a little maple extract and maple syrup mixed in. It has wonderful flavor and works perfectly as our filling and frosting!

The recipe is a combination of softened unsalted butter, cream cheese, powdered sugar, a pinch of salt, maple extract, and maple syrup. This is such a creamy and flavorful recipe!

Cream cheese frostings are softer than other frostings. For this reason, you may find that you need to chill the bowl of frosting, piping bag, or even the cake if it becomes too soft while you are assembling or decorating.

Assembly of the Cake

Place the first cake layer on the cake plate or pedestal. Brush maple syrup over the top. I used a pastry brush to apply a thin layer.

Spread with a layer of maple cream cheese frosting.

If you have any trouble spreading the frosting over the maple-glazed cake layer, you can pipe it on with a disposable piping bag with the tip snipped away.

Then, spread the piped frosting with an offset spatula. For me, the thin layer of syrup sank right into the cake.

Repeat the above steps with the second and third cake layers.

Fill in any gaps between the cake layers, and spread the top and sides of the cake with a thin layer of maple cream cheese frosting. (This is the crumb coat).

I like to chill my crumb coated cakes in the freezer for about 15 minutes to firm everything up before applying the second coat of frosting. (Or you can refrigerate for a bit longer).

This is an optional step but I find it really helpful to decorate cakes when they are chilled.

Decorating the Cake

Decorate the cake however you like! After frosting the cake with the second coat of frosting (after crumb coating), I combed it around the sides with my metal cake comb.

I then used my offset spatula to make swirls of frosting on top, and piped a braided border using a medium sized star tip 21. (Here's a quick video on star tip piping!)

I just love all of the good things happening in this cake- so many flavorful ingredients! Here's a closeup of our slice ;0) - Yummm!

More Classic Cake Recipes

Carrot cake is a classic go-to recipe that will always be a favorite no matter what the occasion. We love it so much!

Here are a few more classic cakes from our Recipes Section that everyone needs in their file of favorites!

In addition to more cakes with coconut and pecans, like Italian Cream Cake, German Chocolate Cake, and Hummingbird Cake, we have so many more classic cakes!:

Recipe FAQs

Yes, because of the cream cheese frosting in the recipe, this cake needs to be refrigerated. It should be stored in an airtight container or under a cake dome.

For best flavor and texture, we recommend removing the cake from the refrigerator 2-3 hours before serving. This gives the cake time to warm and soften.

We love carrot cakes and have made a few different versions. Today's cake was based on our original scratch Carrot Cake recipe. We also have a delicious Carrot Bundt Cake and Carrot Cake Cupcakes (from cake mix).

You should also check out our Carrot Cake from Mix and our Carrot Cheesecake Cake!

All of these carrot cakes are bursting with flavor from carrots, spices, nuts, and more.

Yes! As with most of our cakes (from yellow cake to marble cake, almond cake and more), the layers for this recipe can be made in advance in frozen. After turning out the freshly baked layers, allow to cool.

Once they are just slightly warm or have cooled to room temperature, you can wrap each layer individually in plastic wrap followed by aluminum foil. (For extra support, we often place the cake layer on a foil-wrapped cake board before wrapping the layer.)

To Thaw: Move the wrapped layers from the freezer to the kitchen counter and let them sit for 30-45 minutes before removing the wrapping. T

hen, allow to thaw to desired amount for assembling the cake. (Bakers often like to assemble their cake when the layers are still partially frozen, as they are less fragile.)

Favorite Maple Cake Recipes

If you love cakes flavored with maple, we have a few more to share with you! Some of our most popular are our Maple Pecan Cake from Scratch, Maple Toffee Cake, and Maple Pecan Cake- Doctored Cake Mix.

If you are fan of pound cake recipes, we also have a great Maple Pound Cake with caramel glaze! These crowd pleasing recipes are perfect for any fall gathering!

We hope that you enjoy this delicious Maple Carrot Cake! Make sure to check out other cake recipes from scratch as well as cake mix recipes in our Cake Recipes section.

If you are interested in learning more about cake decorating, we have a huge collection of cake decorating video tutorials!

We cover everything from how to make a cake, how to frost a cake, baby shower cakes, birthday cake ideas, and more!

Have you made this? We would LOVE for you to leave a ⭐️ rating as well as a comment and photo below! We really appreciate your feedback!