Ingredients
1 1/2 cups (213g) all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 cup (4 oz) unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup (106g) granulated sugar
1/4 cup (55g) packed light-brown sugar
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup (118g) finely grated carrots
Chopped pecans or cinnamon , for decoration (optional)
Frosting
5 oz cream cheese , softened (don't over-soften it)
6 Tbsp (3 oz) butter, softened
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups (220g) powdered sugar
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a mixing bowl whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg for 20 seconds, set aside.
In a larger bowl, blend together butter, granulated sugar and brown sugar until creamy. Blend in egg and vanilla extract.
With mixer set on low speed, add half of the flour mixture and mix just until combined, then mix in carrots, then mix in remaining 1/2 of the flour mixture just until combined. Scrape sides and bottom of bowl with a spatula to make sure everything is properly incorporated.
Since the dough is pretty wet here (it won’t resemble your typical chocolate-chip cookie batter), you’ll want to chill the dough before baking it. It never firms up as much which is what will give you the soft cake-like cookies, but the chilling helps to keep the dough from spreading too much.
Scoop dough out with a medium 1 1/2 Tbsp cookie scoop and drop onto baking sheets lined with silicone liners, spacing cookies 2-inches apart.
Bake in preheated oven until set (they should still be soft to the touch though), about 11 - 12 minutes. You want to err on the side of slightly underbaked cookies to keep these soft and cake-like.
Cool on baking sheet several minutes then transfer to a wire rack to cool. After 5 - 10 minutes of cooling on rack finish cooling completely in an airtight container so they don't dry. Once cool, frost with cream cheese frosting and top with pecans if desired.
For the frosting:
In a mixing bowl fitted with the paddle attachment, whip together butter and cream cheese until light and fluffy. Mix in vanilla and powdered sugar and whip again until light and fluffy (if slightly runny chill in freezer about 5 minutes then mix one last time).
If doing the carrot decoration set aside about 2 Tbsp of tint green and 2 Tbsp to tint orange
 Tips for these carrot cake cookiesChop, grate and chop again To ensure that the carrots can cook through in enough time, you’ll want to very finely shred the carrots.Do not Overmix, just stirThe wet and dry ingredients are combined and mixed until just combined. You don’t want to overmix once the flour is added because that will yield denser cookies. The more you mix flour, the more time the gluten has to activate which will make your final cookie much denser than intended. Be precise when measuring the ingredients. The most important measurement is the flour. If you press a measuring cup into a bag of flour you are likely packing in way too much flour which will completely mess up the texture of your cookies. Make sure you spoon the flour into a measuring cup and level the top with the back of a butter knife. Use the right temperature of ingredients.You’ll want to use room temperature eggs always when baking. Soaking refrigerated eggs in a bowl of warm (not hot) water for about 10 minutes is a quick way to do this. Otherwise, pull the eggs out about 30 minutes before use. When at room temperature, eggs and butter form an emulsion which traps air. While baking in the oven, that trapped air expands and produces a fluffy baked good. Chill the dough. When you chill dough the butter solidifies which allows it to melt slower when it’s baked. This creates a thicker cookie which prevents the cookie from going flat and becoming crispy. Chilling the dough also gives the sugar time to absorb more of the liquid and become more concentrated. A more concentrated sugar is going to give you a chewier and sweeter cookie. The recommended chill time on these cookies is one hour. |
