Best Sourdough Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

Carrot Cake always reminds me of Spring. This is the Best Sourdough Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting! It’s the perfect dessert for a special get together. My husband always requests this cake for his birthday. My kids even choose this over chocolate cake sometimes! 

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Why Sourdough Carrot Cake?

I love incorporating sourdough into as much of my baking as possible. Sourdough recipes are a delicious way to use up any extra sourdough starter. If you are feeding your own sourdough starter every day (sometimes twice a day) like I do, you may have extra sourdough starter discard. Don’t actually “discard” it! Quick recipes like this are a great way to use leftover sourdough discard. It adds such great flavor and makes a moist cake! You can use sourdough starter discard or active sourdough starter in this recipe. Either works just fine! 

Is Carrot Cake Healthy?

The carrots in this cake do offer good source of vitamin A. Sneaking vegetables into treats is a great way to get your kids to get some of the great vitamins and minerals that they might not get otherwise. Especially if your kids have an aversion to vegetables. I used to mince vegetables and put them in sauces and ground meats when they were little. And eating cakes or muffins with shredded carrots or zucchini was always an easy way to get them to eat vegetables unknowingly. 

This is a Simple Carrot Cake

This Best Sourdough Carrot Cake with cream cheese frosting is very kid friendly. It doesn’t have the common add-ins of pineapple, pecans, coconut, or raisins. It just has the perfect sweet cinnamon flavor with a hint of nutmeg. If you do want to add all or any of those things, by all means go for it! 

The Only Acceptable Frosting for Carrot Cake…

Why, Cream Cheese frosting, of course! The Frosting with this cake recipe adds the prefect cream cheese flavor with the perfect amount of sweetness. Not too sweet, just perfect. 

Should Carrot Cake Be Refrigerated?

Yes, this cake should be refrigerated since it has cream cheese frosting. Let thaw for 30 minutes before serving if you don’t want a cold cake. It can sit at room temperature for about 2 hours. If you have any leftover cake, just cover with plastic wrap or store in an airtight container. This delicious cake will stay fresh for one week in the refrigerator. 

Ingredients you’ll need

To get started making this recipe, you’ll first want to gather all your ingredients first.

Here is what you’ll need:

Ingredients you’ll need

For Cream Cheese Frosting.

Here is what you’ll need:

Tools you will need:

• Stand mixer or hand mixer
• Grater or food processor
• measuring cups and spoons.
• Two 8 in round cake pans

Step by Step Instructions

Step 1: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Prepare two 8 inch round cake pans with butter and then sprinkle flour over butter. Tap the pan all around so there is a light coating of flour over the butter. (Parchment paper can also be used.)

Step 2: In a large mixing bowl and paddle attachment, cream butter and sugars.. Mix on medium/high speed until butter/sugar mixture is light and fluffy about 2-3 minutes. 

Step 3: Add eggs, vanilla extract, and sourdough starter discard and blend on medium speed. Then add all the dry ingredients. Mix on low speed, just until the flour mixture is combined with wet ingredients. Scrape down sides and bottom of the bowl to make sure that all the dry ingredients are mixed in properly.

Step 4: Lastly, fold in the grated carrots. Pour batter into two 8 inch greased cake pans (or you can use 9×13 baking pan) and bake in preheated oven for 35-40 minutes or until the toothpick comes out clean when poked into the center of the cake. The edges of the cake will pull away from the sides of the pan when your cake is done. You can also test with the touch method. If you lightly press the center of the top of the cake with your finger and it bounces back up, it is done. If it leaves an imprint in the cake it is not done baking. Let cake cool in pans for about 5 minutes. Then turn them out of the pans onto a cooling rack to cool completely.

Cream Cheese Frosting

While the Sourdough Carrot Cake is cooling. In a large bowl, mix together the room temperature butter and cream cheese. Add in the powdered sugar and vanilla and beat until smooth. 

Make sure the carrot cake is cool before you frost it. If the cake is too warm, the cake will start to slide. We don’t need that extra stress, do we?

When the cake is cool, frost and enjoy!

I hope you do enjoy this Sourdough Carrot Cake. It will quickly become a family favorite!

If you enjoyed this delicious cake, try these sourdough discard recipes. It’s the perfect way to use use your sourdough starter discard!