Carrot Cake with Sweet Buttermilk Glaze and Cream Cheese Buttercream
By Lizzie on July 16, 2019
Hi my baking friends! I hope everyone is doing well and enjoying summer in your neck of the woods 🙂
I’m SO excited to share this amazing recipe with you, and have been working on it for the past few days! As any of my fellow bakers know, creating a new recipe, or re-working an old one is a pain staking process. A whole lot of time is spent in the kitchen making mistakes, cleaning up huge messes, taking notes and tasting way too much for my own good. By the time I am done with everything at the end of the day, I’m not hungry for anything else because I’m so full from whatever I was baking 🙂 I told my Mom today that I am going to try intermittent fasting a few times a week…then decided I like food too much 🙂 Go figure 🙂
A few weeks ago, my husband and I took my son to lunch for his birthday at a nice well known chain restaurant. I told the waitress that it was my son’s birthday and would she be so kind as to bring him some dessert. She asked me if he liked carrot cake, and I said sure! Well, when she brought the cake to the table, I was thinking it was going to be a typical layer cake, so I wasn’t expecting much when I took a bite. 10 bites later, I just couldn’t stop myself and asked my son if I could finish the rest since he was so full from his meal. 🙂 I knew at that point that I was going to go home and try to recreate that amazing cake. I thought if I was really nice, the waitress might give me the recipe, but of course, she said she didn’t even know it herself. ( A stock answer of any waitstaff I am sure.) 🙂 The only she did tell me was that it had a buttermilk mixture poured over the warm cake. I knew the frosting was a cream cheese frosting, so that was going to be easy, and the cake was very reminiscent of a cake my Mom used to make a long time ago..Have you ever had a prune cake? Well, that cake had a buttermilk mixture poured over the warm cake, so I knew I could figure that part out too. Knowing what I love in a carrot cake is easy, so I was ready to begin my experiment in my kitchen 🙂 The rest is dessert history 🙂
I hope you LOVE this cake as much as I do…and everyone who stopped by my house to have a piece today 🙂 Let me know what you think!! xo
Some of the yummy ingredients that went into this cake! There were so many that they wouldn’t all fit into the photo 🙂
No mixer is required for the cake itself, which is great!
I made the buttermilk syrup while the cake was baking.
Your house is going to smell AHHHMAZING while it’s baking 🙂 (yes, I purposely spelled that wrong for effect.) 🙂
You’re going to poke holes in the cake while it’s still warm from the oven. I used the bottom of my spatula, because you want the holes to be nice and big. Make sure NOT to poke them all the way through to the bottom of the cake!
Pour the syrup all over the top of the cake and spread it out with a spoon so it seeps into every hole 🙂
Make the luscious cream cheese buttercream while the cake is chilling.
I piped the frosting on the cake to take some pretty pictures, but ordinary, you won’t need this much because the cake is SO rich and sweet already.
The best way to eat this cake is to heat it up in the microwave for several seconds so the frosting oozes all over the top. In my opinion, it’s the ONLY way to eat it the correct way…nice and warm 🙂
I could just keep posting pictures, but I guess I will move on to the recipe 😉
Carrot Cake with Sweet Buttermilk Glaze and Cream Cheese Buttercream
Makes: 1, 9x13" cake Prep Time: 1 hour Bake time: 32 to 35 minutes
Ingredients
Cake
2 cups all purpose flour
2 cups Dixie Crystals Granulated Sugar
1 tablespoon baking soda
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 eggs
3/4 vegetable oil
3/4 whole buttermilk
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 cup crushed and drained pineapple
2 cups shredded carrots
1 and 1/4 pecan or walnut pieces
Buttermilk Syrup
1/2 cup whole buttermilk
12 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 cup Dixie Crystals Granulated Sugar
1 and 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Cream Cheese Buttercream
1/2 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
8 ounces softened cream cheese
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons heavy cream
pinch of salt
4 and 1/2 cups Dixie Crystals Confectioners Sugar
Directions
Make the cake:
Preheat your oven to 325 degrees. Spray a 9×13″ baking pan with cooking spray and set aside.
In a large bowl, whisk all of the dry ingredients together by hand.
In another bowl, whisk the eggs, oil, buttermilk and vanilla together.
Add that mixture into the dry and mix until incorporated.
Add in the pineapple, carrots and nuts.
Pour into your prepared pan.
Bake for 30 to 38 minutes, depending on your oven. The cake will be a deep brown color and spring back in the center when it is done.
While the cake is baking, make the syrup:
Buttermilk syrup:
In a pan over low heat, mix together all of the syrup ingredients.
Cook for about 5 minutes, or until the sugar is completely disolved.
When the cake is done, wait about 5 minutes then poke holes all over the top of it. Make sure not to push down to the bottom of the pan. You want the liquid to be absorbed into the cake. I used the bottom of a spatula for this. ( See above photos).
Make the buttercream frosting:
Cream cheese buttercream:
Blend together the cream cheese and butter until smooth. Add in the vanilla, cream and pinch of salt. Slowly add in the confectioners sugar and blend until the mixture is smooth and creamy.
**IMPORTANT** In my humble opinion, the only way to eat this cake is warm…frosting and all. So, here is what I do. You can frost the cake when it is cool, then cut individual pieces. Place a piece in the microwave for about 20 to 25 seconds, depending on the size of the slice. Then, the frosting will ooze down the sides of the cake and will be extraordinarily delicious!! What makes this cake stand out from the rest is eating it while it’s warm. It will change your life, I promise 🙂
I hope you enjoy this scrumptious cake as much as my friends and family did!!
Let me know how much you loved it! I love hearing your feedback 🙂
Happy Baking, my friends!! xo
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