Name: Best Ever Gluten Free Carrot Cake
Prep time: 30 min
Cook time: 35 min
Ingredients: 1 pound finely grated carrots (using the small holes in a box grater or shredding the carrots first in a food processor and then switching to the blade to finely chop); 1¼ cups (250 g) granulated sugar; 1 cup (225 g) firmly packed light brown sugar; 1¼ cups (300 ml) canola or vegetable oil; 4 large eggs, at room temperature; 2 tsp vanilla extract; finely grated zest of one orange; 2 cups (280 g) Kim's gluten free flour blend (or blend of choice containing xanthan gum); 1½ tsp baking powder; 1 tsp baking soda; 1 tsp ground cinnamon; ¼ tsp ground ginger; ¼ tsp ground cardamom, optional; ½ tsp kosher salt; ¼ tsp ground nutmeg; 1¼ cups (145 g) sweetened shredded coconut; 1½ cups chopped dried fruit (apricots and cherries or any other dried fruits you may have); 3 8-ounce blocks (678 g) cream cheese, softened; 2 sticks (½ lb or 226 g) butter, softened; 4 cups (about 1 lb or 453 g) powdered sugar, sifted; 2 tsp vanilla extract; 1 tbsp (about half of a medium orange) freshly squeezed orange juice; ¼ to ½ package each green and orange colored white chocolate flavored melting wafers (Melt N Mold is the brand I used, but any brand without gluten will work fine--Wilton is processed in a facility that processes wheat).

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Packed with carrots and dried cherries, this truly is the best ever gluten free carrot cake. It’s frosted with the most luscious cream cheese frosting!

How is everyone doing these days in isolation? It’s been very strange times indeed and sometimes I’ve considered not doing posts like this because people may or may not be feeling festive or in the mood or whatever. But then I thought about it and I refuse to let this whole thing get me down. There is nothing at the moment we can do that we aren’t already doing to make our own situations any better, so we may as well enjoy what we have and make the most of it.

So if you don’t mind, I’m going to continue baking yummy food and sharing it with you, and maybe at least we can all feel a little more “normal” under the circumstances. This too shall pass.

I’m making a bold statement by saying this is the BEST EVER gluten free carrot cake, but I’m not exaggerating one bit. It truly IS the best ever! It’s loaded with a whopping pound of grated carrots and has a few unusual, but delicious, add-ins that make it better than all the rest.

I found this recipe a while ago on Zoe Bakes and made cupcakes with it, substituting the cream cheese frosting for Italian meringue buttercream. You’ll find that version here.

Before all this social distancing went down, I had stocked up on plenty of cute Easter sprinkles and cupcake liners, sure I was gonna make dozens of cupcakes in the next couple of weeks.

But I just haven’t been feeling cupcakes lately. It happens. I go on what I call baking binges. All I can concentrate on for a while is one thing, like baking yeast bread, or cupcakes, or cookies, or making candy, etc, etc.

Right now it’s cakes, complete in all their layery goodness and anywhere from subtle to full-on sophisticated decorations. This cake was born from that recent obsession of mine.

slice of carrot cake with cake behind it

How to Make Best Ever Gluten Free Carrot Cake

When I read Zoe’s recipe, I was so intrigued by the addition of not only dried cherries, but also apricots! How could it be that my two absolute favorite dried fruits were in this ONE cake? I knew I HAD to make this cake into a gluten free version and put my own spin on it! Here’s the ingredients:

Finely grated carrots — Zoe recommends first shredding the carrots in a food processor with the shredding disk attached, and then putting the blade in to finely chop those shreds. You can also use a box grater on the smaller holes.
Granulated sugar
Brown sugar
Canola or vegetable oil
Eggs
Vanilla extract
Kim’s gluten free flour blend — or the brand of your choice containing xanthan gum.
Orange zest
Baking powder
Baking soda
Ground cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and cardamom
Salt
Sweetened shredded coconut
Chopped dried apricots and cherries

It might seem like a lot of ingredients, but most of these are pantry staples that you may already have on hand. Zoe’s recipe called for ground cloves, which I didn’t have, but I did have ground cardamom. I love the flavor of cardamom and it worked well here.

My Frosting of Choice

Back when I made this cake into cupcakes, I wasn’t real keen on cream cheese frosting so I chose to make Italian meringue buttercream. Which is a fabulous frosting. But I had cream cheese frosting again between then and now and decided I love it! Idk what the heck I was thinking when I didn’t like it. I mean, that’s almost sacrilege.

This cream cheese frosting is luscious and smooth and perfectly sweet without being sickeningly so. It’s made with only five ingredients:

Cream cheese — go for the full fat blocks here. No low fat or fat free. You won’t get the same results and the frosting will be too runny.
Butter
Powdered sugar
Vanilla extract
Freshly squeezed orange juice

Making the Brush Strokes

You don’t have to make these brush strokes to put on the cake. It’ll be delicious with just the cream cheese frosting. But these are so, so easy and incredibly beautiful, why not? Plus, your kids would have a blast making these AND eating ’em, too!

Melt a small amount of green and orange white chocolate flavored candy wafers. I had some leftover from another project I did and only had about 1/4 of a 14-ounce bag of green and 1/2 of a 14-ounce bag of orange so I melted both of those in separate bowls.

On a baking sheet lined with waxed paper (or parchment or whatever you have on hand) place about a silver dollar-sized dollop of melted chocolate. With the back of a spoon, “swoosh” through the chocolate to spread it across the paper. Don’t worry about being perfect.

brush strokes of chocolate on baking sheet

Do this with all of the melted chocolate in both colors. Allow them to dry as recommended on the package before removing them carefully from the paper.

I only had enough of each to decorate one side of the cake. But when researching how to do these brush stroke cakes, I found that almost all of them were done on only one side of the cake anyway. So this was perfect as it was more of an abstract interpretation of a carrot.

After frosting the cake and allowing it to chill to firm up, remove the cake from the fridge and let it sit for just a few minutes (about 5) to make the frosting tacky enough to “glue” the brush strokes onto the cake. Line one side of the cake with the orange brush strokes, overlapping and gently pressing into the side of the cake.

putting the orange chocolate brush stroke on the cake

lining up two brush strokes on side of cake

Take the green brush strokes and line them up behind the orange ones, gently pressing into the top of the cake. Place the cake back in the fridge to set the frosting once again before serving.

I Don’t Have Apricots or Dried Cherries. Can I Use Something Else?

During this time of uncertainty with panic buying at its highest ever, you may find that either you don’t have some of the ingredients for the cake in your pantry or they’re not on the shelves in your local supermarkets. That’s okay.

Don’t have apricots? Use dates. Or pineapple. Don’t have cherries? Use raisins. Or cranberries. Don’t have any dried fruits? Leave them out. The cake will still be fabulous without them.

Even if you’re not having the typical Easter celebration you’re used to this year, you can still bake this cake and decorate it with your kids, and enjoy it with those around you.