Italian Carrot Cake

a slice of carrot cake coming out of a cake.

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5 from 15 votes

Everything you love about this classic cake, but with an Italian twist!

Course Dessert

Cuisine American, Italian-Inspired

Diet Vegetarian

Servings slices

Calories 503kcal

Author Tracy

Equipment

Ingredients

2 1/4 cups all purpose flour 310 g
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder 7 g
1 teaspoon baking soda 6 g
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon 4 g
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon ground ginger 2 g
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt 3 g
3/4 cup Greek yogurt whole, 124 g
1/4 cup light olive oil 2 oz or 51 g
1/2 cup granulated sugar 116g
1/2 cup homemade applesauce 118 g, or unsweetened
3/4 cup light brown sugar 179 g
4 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups carrots shredded
1 1/3 cup whole raw hazelnuts divided, 5.75 oz
butter or cooking spray to grease pans

Mascarpone Frosting

8 oz mascarpone cheese or cream cheese
3/4 cup granulated sugar 156 g
1 teaspoon almond extract
1 cup heavy whipping cream
1/2 tablespoon lemon juice

Instructions

Prep Hazelnuts: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Add hazelnuts to a baking tray. Bake for 10 minutes. Set aside to cool.
Once hazelnuts are cooled, chop. Keep a couple whole for final cake topping, if desired. (See recipe notes)
Grease cake pans and set aside.
Create Cake Batter: Whisk sugars, vanilla extract, eggs, oil, applesauce, and yogurt in a large bowl using a whisk or just a fork.
Whisk flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg in a medium-sized bowl.
Add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients, mixing with a spatula, and mix until just combined, do not overmix.
Fold in the shredded carrots and 2/3 of the chopped hazelnuts.
Bake: Add batter to the greased cake pans, splitting the batter evenly between the two pans. Bake for 30-35 minutes or until the center pulls clean with a cake tester.
Let Cool Completely: Let cool in the pans for 5 minutes before gently removing them from the pans to finish cooling on cooling racks.
Make Frosting: Add all of the frosting ingredients to a medium-sized bowl and blend with a hand mixer until thick and creamy. Approximately 2 minutes.
Frost the cake: Once completely cool, use a long serrated knife (like a bread knife) to gently trim the rounded top of one of the cakes so that it is flat. Place it upon either a cake decorating stand or whatever plate you will be storing the cake on.
Add about 1/3 of the frosting to the top of the flattened topped cake and spread it in a thick and even layer. See recipe notes.
Gently place the other cake, rounded side up and flat side down on top of the now frosted cake on the plate.
Finish frosting the cake however you please. The frosting recipe will make enough to be able to fully cover the whole cake but you can frost it as much as you'd like.
Garnish: Use the remaining hazelnuts to garnish around the edge of the top of the cake, or however you wish. Add the reserved whole hazelnuts to the center of the cake with some shredded carrot, if desired.

Video

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Notes

Storage

Fridge: Store the cake in the fridge. Cover if you have a cake plate cover to help retain its moisture for as long as possible.

Freezer: Slice cake into pieces, wrap in plastic wrap, and then foil and store in the freezer for up to 3 months.

Substitutions

Flour: This makes a delicious gluten-free carrot cake, too! Just substitute the all-purpose flour for 352 g of gluten-free 1:1 flour. Be sure it's a 1:1, like this brand.

Applesauce: We love our homemade applesauce for this recipe when made on the less sweet side. If you are using store-bought, you'll want to use an unsweetened applesauce. Also if using store-bought apple sauce, since our homemade applesauce is a bit spiced, you may want to increase the cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg a bit, approximately 1/4 teaspoon and 1/8 teaspoon respectively.

Olive Oil: We suggest using as light of an olive oil as possible. This will reduce the olive flavor. Some is delicious, but you don't want a very heavy olive flavor. You can also use a more neutral oil like vegetable or canola.

Greek Yogurt: You can also use regular plain yogurt, but we do suggest keeping it at least whole or 2%. This will help keep the cake tender and moist.

Hazelnuts: This is key to keeping this Italian Carrot Cake, well, Italian! But of course, you can use another favorite nut like walnuts. We use whole hazelnuts and then roast, but you could also buy already roasted hazelnuts and then just chop them, but be sure you don't use salted hazelnuts.

Vanilla Extract: We prefer to use vanilla for the cake and then almond for the frosting. The frosting is still delicious with vanilla, but it's much better with almond!

Mascarpone Cheese: Another key Italian element to this carrot cake, but if you cannot find it in your local grocery store, you can of course use cream cheese, too.

Roasting Hazelnuts

We keep the skins mostly on for this recipe, but you can also try to remove as much of the skins as possible after you roast them by rubbing a handful of hazelnuts between both hands, which will remove any loose skin. Or when you chop the hazelnuts, do your best to gather just the chopped nuts and leave the loose skin pieces behind. Or you can just buy raw roasted hazelnuts which usually have most of the skins removed already.

Recipe Tips

Be sure to grease your cake pans well so that the cakes easily come clean when baked.

Let the cakes completely cool before frosting and trimming.

Do your best to trim the top of the first layer cake flat and evenly before you frost so that the other cake sits evenly on top.

Nutrition