Homemade Chocolate Carrot Cake.

Happy Holiday everyone! 

This is my favorite recipe for a homemade chocolate carrot cake. It’s very easy to make, and perfectly moist, topped with an easy homemade cream cheese frosting. It’s a perfect cake for Christmas or New Year. I love this cream cheese frosting. It’s not too sweet and very smooth. You can bake this cake in 3 different ways, layered, cupcake and just an easy pan cake. I make a layered cake for birthdays and holidays, for other times I usually make a pan cake. It’s easy and so delicious. I really hope you  make this yummy cake. If you have any question please let me know. Good luck and enjoy 😋🍫🥕🎂

Here is a cute little chocolate carrot cupcake with cream cheese frosting. My boys decorated these cuties. We made these for the latest Holiday.

What makes carrot cake good:

• Chocolate: I like to make it with chocolate because it gives a rich flavor and it’s so good. Trust me. 
• One important thing: when measuring your dry ingredients, make sure to spoon and level your flour. 
• Carrot cake should be moist and have a good amount of spices.
• Brown sugar: not only add flavor, but it also adds more moisture to the cake.
• Grated carrots: try to use organic carrots and grate them yourself.
• Spices: Cinnamon, all spice and nutmeg. These are the important spices to make your carrot cake. 
• Cream cheese frosting: try to make a homemade cream cheese frosting, the store bought frosting doesn’t even compare to a homemade frosting recipe.

Directions:

1. First thing you need a do is put your in the middle position of your oven and, heat your oven to 350*F (180 C). Prepare two 20-cm (8-inch) springform cake pans by rubbing the sides with some butter or spray oil and dust with flour. Set aside. 
2. In a medium bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, all spice and salt. Set aside. 
3. Finely chop the chocolates and place it in the bowl. Heat the milk just to boiling and put the chocolates in the milk and stir until melted.
4. In a large mixing bowl, using mixer level on medium, mix oil, sugar, vanilla and eggs for about 3-4 minutes and then add melted chocolate and stir. Now add the flour mixture little by little, stir with a wooden spoon until even. Final step, add your grated carrots and stir gently with a your wooden spoon. Batter is ready so now baking time 😉 
5. Divide the batter evenly between prepared pans. Bake until the top of the cake is smooth and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.  After 35-40 minutes, remove the pans to cool on the racks. After 6-7 minutes, run knife around sides of the cakes and cool completely before frosting. I like to cool the cake at room temperature a bit, then wrap, and freeze until cold and firm. ( you can freeze the cake up to 2 days) Make sure the cake layers are fully cooled before you start to decorate.
6. To make cream cheese frosting: In the bowl to make your frosting, beat the cream cheese and butter until smooth for about 1-2 minutes. Add in the icing sugar one cup by one cup and add vanilla extract. Mix until fully combined. Don’t forget to scrape down the sides of the bowl so you can get the most out of your frosting.
7. To assemble a layered cake, slice each cake horizontally in half. Place the top half of the cake dome side down on plate or your cake turntable. Spread it with a quarter of the icing, leaving a narrow border around the cake. Lay the bottom part of that cake on top, cut side down. Once you’ve added a layer of frosting between each cake layer, and you’re ready to frost the outside of the cake, start with a thin layer of frosting (called a crumb coat) to seal in the crumbs. Then put the entire cake in the freezer for at least 15 minutes for the crumb coat to firm up.
8. Now add the second layer of frosting, this time you can spend a bit of more time making it as smooth as you wish.  Then add some reserved frosting to a piping bag and pipe swirls of frosting around the top rim of the cake, if desired.  Top with nuts, fruits or your favorite decorations. Refrigerate overnight before serving. 

Enjoy 😉

(Can you bake it in a 9*13 pan? Yes you can. I actually prefer how simple this is to make compared to my layered carrot cake. There is no need to worry about leveling the cake or decorating. All you need is bake and let it cool, then spread some yummy cream cheese frosting on top)