I absolutely LOVE carrot cake, and this amazing doctored cake mix recipe is moist, flavorful, and bursting with flavor!
If you love working with doctored cake mixes, don’t let this carrot cake recipe pass you by! It may start from a simple cake mix, but there are so many delicious add-ins that it’ll taste like you slaved in the kitchen for hours!
Our Carrot Cake -doctored cake mix recipe is simpler than making a carrot cake from scratch (we have an amazing scratch Carrot Cake linked below), but it’s also more involved than just mixing up a Carrot Cake mix. In fact, we don’t even use Carrot Cake mix for this recipe!
We love this doctored cake mix Carrot Cake version over simply preparing a boxed Carrot Cake mix because it has SO much more flavor from the addition of freshly shredded carrots, spices, coconut, pecans, and crushed pineapple!
We may trust the cake mix factories to create mixes for delightfully fluffy and flavorful cake layers, but there’s just no substitute for the carrots and fruit needed to make this carrot cake shine! Trust us, the payoff is worth the extra bit of work!
Now, a word about the frosting. In my book it is a crime to frost a delicious carrot cake with anything other than luscious, dreamy, cream cheese frosting. It happens to be my FAVORITE thing.
The cool and creamy tang of cream cheese frosting is the perfect complement to moist spiced carrot cake layers. We actually have two favorite Cream Cheese Frosting recipes on our site.
Our Pipeable Cream Cheese Frosting has a higher proportion of cream cheese and pipes beautifully. Our Classic Cream Cheese Buttercream Frosting is a bit softer. Both are amazing.
(*This Carrot Cake doctored mix recipe is not recommended for fondant due to the moistness that the pineapple & coconut bring to this recipe.)
Carrot Cake- A Doctored Cake Mix Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 box spice cake mix
- 1 box white cake mix
- Follow box instructions, substituting orange juice for half of the water.
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 3/4 c. shredded coconut
- 2 1/4-2 1/2 cups carrots, grated fine
- 4 oz. crushed, drained pineapple. (We buy an 8 oz can of crushed pineapple and use about half) put in a strainer to let the excess juice drain out
- 1 cup chopped pecans.
Directions
- ** Mix cake mixes together according to box instructions. Then add remaining ingredients. Bake at 325 degrees until cakes spring back when touched in the center.
- **This makes a lot of cake batter. You can bake up and freeze any extra layers, tightly wrapped, or you can half the recipe. If you half the recipe, I would use the spice cake mix rather than the white.
As I mentioned above, we also have an fantastic Carrot Cake Recipe from scratch! The add-in ingredients are similar to the the semi-homemade carrot cake version above.
We love carrots, pineapple, shredded coconut, and pecans in our carrot cakes! Such a heavenly combination of flavors and textures!! Ahhhh….
You can find our homemade Carrot Cake Recipe here: Carrot Cake Recipe from Scratch
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This cake was awesome! I have never been a fan of carrot cake and this recipe changed my mind. Staff loved it! I left out the coconut though because not everyone likes it. I did use fresh pineapples with no issues…just drained it very well. Thank you for another GREAT recipe!!
Hi Katherine, I am so happy that all went well and everyone enjoyed the cake! Thank you for your feedback on using fresh pineapple, that is good to know and I’m sure the information will be helpful to others.
I made as written -almost. I used gluten free cake mixes. I also forgot to buy pineapple (oops). I had some jarred mangoes, so I chopped up some of those and tossed them in instead. It was REALLY GOOD!
I was able to make 60 regular sized cupcakes with this recipe.
I’m freezing half to use later. A huge hit with my family. Nobody could tell they were GF!
I made 50 cupcakes not 60! Sorry!
These look great! Thanks for your feedback ;0)
I want To make this cake except not using pineapple . I want also to use pureed carrots . Would that be ok? Any changes would I need to make? Thank you I plan on making this for fathers day
Hi Linda, I would use grated apple as a substitute for the pineapple. Golden Delicious apple if possible, I think the extra sweetness of the apple would be a better replacement. If the apples are finely grated they will soften as the cake cooks.
First time visitor here. The cake is in the oven, exactly as the recipe states. My comment is, thanks for the constant mini box tutorial in the lower right corner; it kept the screen alive and I didn’t need to constantly turn my iPad back on while reading and re-reading the recipe. Was that designed on purpose?
Hi! Is this recipe suitable for stacking? I’m going to make a tiered naked cake… thanks!
Hi Amber, We have had follow-up reviews that it worked well for tiered cakes. When you are draining the pineapple in a strainer, use the back of a spoon to press out some of the liquid.
Can I substitute a carrot cakemix since i don’t have spice cake mix
Hi Dorothy, Haven’t tried using carrot cake but I think it would be fine. I don’t know what the carrots are like in the carrot cake mix, I think you would still need to add the finely grated carrots. I hope you will enjoy the cake.