Carrot cake is probably one of my favorite cakes. The flavor and texture are perfect together! I’ve never tried making cake pops before so I thought this would be a great opportunity to try them out.

I originally made these for Easter. Since I was already making other desserts, I wanted to use boxed cake and homemade frosting for these. I ran into trouble though when literally NO ONE had carrot cake! I went to 3 different grocery stores and none of them had the boxed cake.

I ended up making the whole thing from scratch and they came out delicious!

Ingredients

Cake

• 3 c flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 c brown sugar
• 1 c granulated sugar
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp ginger
• 3/4 c vegetable oil
• 1/2 c sour cream
• 1 tbsp vanilla
• 4 eggs
• 1/2 c buttermilk
• 1 1/2 c grated carrots

Frosting

• 1/4 + 1/8 c unsalted butter
• 12oz cream cheese
• 3 c powdered sugar

Topping

• Chocolate
• Sprinkles
• Chopped/Toasted nuts

When I made these, the only negative comments I got were because of the chocolate I used when decorating and the frosting. I used white candy melts, which are great, but they don’t have the best flavor. I would suggest getting some good white chocolate for coating. If you’re not a fan of white chocolate, then you can use another type of chocolate or leave them plain! If you are coating them in chocolate, then feel free to decorate them with some sprinkles or chopped nuts. The problem with the frosting wasn’t that it was bad, but the flavor wasn’t as present in the cake balls as expected. That being said, I have increased the amount of frosting for the recipe!

Directions

Cake

1. Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Prepare a 9×13 baking pan. Grate the carrots.
   • You are going to end up crumbling/destroying the cake so don’t worry too much about it sticking
2. In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
3. In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine brown sugar, granulated sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger. Stir to combine.
4. Add the vegetable oil and sour cream to the sugar mixture. Beat on low to combine.
   • Be careful when you’re mixing this because if you go too fast then it might splash out of the bowl
5. Add in vanilla. Add the eggs one at a time, scraping down the sides of the bowl after each one has been incorporated.
6. Add about 1/2 of the dry ingredients to the stand mixer and beat on low. Once almost combined add in the buttermilk and beat on low. Add in the remainder of the dry ingredients and beat on low until combined.
7. Fold in the carrots.
8. Pour the batter into the 9×13 pan and bake for 50 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean in the middle
   • Make sure you bake the cake on the middle rack and don’t disturb it while baking. Wait the entire 50 minutes before you check it
   • When you put the cake in the oven, take out the butter and cream cheese for the frosting so it can get to room temperature.
9. Let the cake cook completely

Frosting

1. In the bowl of a stand mixer, add butter and cream cheese. Beat on medium-low until light and fluffy.
2. Slowly mix in the powdered sugar. Beat until light and fluffy.
   • I try to flick the machine on/off for about 10 seconds repeatedly until the frosting starts to come together slightly. This prevents a giant cloud of powder sugar to puff out. 
   • I like to beat the frosting on high for 3-5 minutes and that usually whips out all the lumps. Make sure you scrape down the bowl after and re-whip if there are any butter/cream cheese chunks remaining.
3. Once the cake is cooled, using a fork or your hands, crumble it up in the pan.
   • Yes, you just spent all that time baking a gorgeous cake to destroy it. Have fun!
4. With the stand mixer running on low, slowly add the cake crumbles in. Continue mixing until the entire cake has been added and everything is well mixed.
   • After a certain point, it may be too thick and the stand mixer will struggle to continue mixing it. At that point, you can just finish mixing it with your hands.
5. If you have a food scale, weight out 2oz of dough at a time and roll them into balls. If you don’t have a scale, then make roughly tablespoon sized balls. 
6. Place the balls on parchment lined baking sheet and allow them to chill for 30 minutes to an hour before coating them.

Decorating

You can leave these plain and you don’t have to put them on sticks

1. Set up a contraption to allow the pops to stand/cool after dipping
   • Try to find something stable that you can poke the sticks into and allow the pops to stand up straight while they cool.
   • If you have styrofoam or something strudy, that is best.
2. Poke sticks about 1/2 way into the cake balls. Try not to go too far otherwise it will split the cake ball.
3. Melt the chocolate using a double broiler or in the microwave.
4. Dip the cake balls into the chocolate and use a spoon to make sure the entire pop is covered. Allow some of the excess chocolate to drip off before setting it to  dry
5. If you are adding another topping, put it on now before the chocolate sets.
6. Once the chocolate sets, transfer the cake pops into a container or tray and refigerate them until ready to serve

These cake pops are a lot of work, but they’re worth it. They are perfect to pop in your mouth and enjoy! Personally, I’m not a huge fan of white chocolate so I enjoyed the plain ones better, but they were both delicious!

Test Kitchen: Opinion and Changes

I originally found this recipe on Cookie Dough and Oven Mitt. As I had mentioned, I was only going to use the frosting recipe at first, but I ended up using the cake recipe as well.

For the recipe, I decreased the amount of shredded carrot because I didn’t want too many lumps in the dough. In addition, I suggest increasing the amount of frosting to help it stick together better and increase the amount of flavor tasted.

Happy Baking!