The Best Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

For the cake:
Preheat oven to 350ºF (176ºC). Generously grease two 9-inch round baking pans. Add about ¼ cup of flour to each pan and move the pan around, tapping, to get the pan coated with flour. Tap out the excess. Set pans aside.

In a large bowl, add regular sugar, brown sugar and oil. Mix with an electric mixer. Add eggs and vanilla and beat well. Add flour into the bowl and right on top of the flour add in the cinnamon, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Using a spoon/fork, try to mix just the dry ingredients together with a spoon/fork to disperse the ingredients. Then use the electric mixer to incorporate all the ingredients together until just combined. Don’t over-beat.

Use a spatula/large spoon to stir in carrots, walnuts, and raisins. Pour this batter evenly between both cake pans. Smooth the top and put the pans in the oven for 30 minutes or until a fork poked through the middle comes out clean. Remove from oven.

Allow cakes to completely cool before frosting them so that the frosting doesn’t melt.

For the frosting:
In a medium-large bowl, beat together cream cheese and butter using an electric mixer. Mix in vanilla and salt. Beat well. Then add small portions of the powdered sugar at a time and mix on low speed. Once all the sugar is added, mix on high speed until thoroughly combined.

Invert one cake out of its pan onto your cake platter. Frost the first cake layer with about ⅓ of the frosting. Top with the other cake layer and frost the rest of the cake with the remaining frosting. Enjoy!