Ina Garten's Secret for the Best Carrot Cake

I have a complicated relationship with cake. I love making it, but when it comes to choosing a favorite dessert, your average vanilla cake isn't in the top ten for me. In fact, the only ‘celebratory’ cakes I truly crave are Ina Garten’s Beatty’s Chocolate Cake and a good old-fashioned carrot cake around Easter.

I’m not a big fan of overly sweet frosting, and I like my cake to be noteworthy, filled with spice, texture, and substance. No offense to all the grocery store cake lovers out there, but that is definitely not my sweet treat of choice! 

As one of Ina’s biggest fans, it’s hard to believe I’d never made her carrot cake, but after giving it a try this weekend, all is right in the world. I found my new favorite carrot cake recipe, and have added another fool-proof Ina cake (that is perfect for special occasions) to my repertoire.

The Secret To Ina Garten's Carrot Cake

Upon first glance, the recipe is very similar to the dozens of carrot cakes I’ve made before. The usual cast of characters (sugar, eggs, grated carrots, cinnamon, walnuts, and raisins) come together to create a moist, oil-based cake.

However, one ingredient stands out: fresh diced pineapple. Many recipes call for a can of crushed pineapple, but I’ve never tried one with fresh pineapple before. The pineapple is diced and folded into the batter right before baking. It provides a lovely textural element and moistness to the finished cake, and it added a pop of tropical flavor that worked very well with the earthy carrots. 

My four-year-old Teddy helped me make the batter, and he was astounded by how many carrots were packed into it. A full pound was about four medium carrots for us, and we used the food processor to (very carefully) shred them. After that, the rest of the cake came together very easily. The recipe instructs you to whip the eggs and sugar in a stand mixer, but with a little elbow grease, you could easily do this by hand with a whisk. 

My Tips for Making Ina Garten's Carrot Cake

While I love walnuts in carrot cake, I left them out so I could send leftovers in my kids' lunchboxes. Also, I do not own two eight-inch cake pans, so I used two nine-inch cake pans and baked the cakes for about 50 minutes.

The only other change I made was to grate a little fresh ginger into the batter. I had a bunch to use up, and I love the intense flavor it adds to a cake. It’s far more potent than dried ginger, but if you prefer a less intense ginger zip, you could use 1/2 teaspoon of ginger powder instead. 

When it comes to frosting, I usually make half a batch as no one in my family is big on it. However, Ina’s cream cheese version was light, fluffy, and just the right amount of sweet. I used almost the entire batch to frost the layer cake generously. 

This cake would make the perfect Easter dessert adorned with dried pineapple rings or carrot roses. I look forward to making it again to usher in spring!