This moist and flavorful carrot cake stands tall as the perfect layer cake. It’s extremely flavorful thanks to warm spices, brown sugar and vanilla. The texture is moist, spongy and perfect for layering. Tangy cream cheese frosting takes this recipe to the next level.

**Post was updated April 8, 2025 with new photos, recipe tips, and a slight update to ensure enough frosting**

If you want a carrot cake that makes for a beautiful centerpiece on your dinner table and tastes even better, then this carrot cake layer cake is the perfect option. You have layers of incredibly flavorful carrot cake sandwiched with cream cheese frosting that complements the warm spices perfectly.

While I love my classic, moist carrot cake recipe – because the recipe is so moist it doesn’t work the best as a layer cake. This carrot cake layer cake recipe is designed so that the cake texture is perfect for stacking. The result is this beautiful 3 layer cake cake that’s rustic, elegant and perfect for Easter.

Making the Carrot Cake

Below I’ve included step-by-step photos and tips to help ensure success.

1. Prep. Start by preheating the oven to 350F (180C) degrees and preparing the pans. I always line the bottom of each pan with a round of parchment paper and lightly grease and flour the sides.
   • I do not recommend simply greasing and flouring the bottom and sides as I find it is much more difficult for the cakes to slide out once cooled.
2. Toast the Nuts. If using walnuts, chop them finely and place on a cookie sheet. Toast in the preheated oven for 6-8 minutes, or until you can start to smell a nutty aroma.
3. Whisk the Dry Ingredients. In a medium bowl, you’ll whisk together the dry ingredients: flour, cinnamon, ginger powder, nutmeg, baking soda, baking powder and salt.
   • This step does a few key things – it helps to remove any lumps and ensures that the spices and leveners are evenly distributed. I prefer the flavor of using a combo of spices as opposed to just cinnamon – it really makes for a more flavorful carrot cake.
4. Whisk the Wet Ingredients. Then in a separate very large bowl, whisk together the oil, brown sugar and granulated sugar, eggs and vanilla. This step helps to remove any lumps of sugar and aerate the eggs – which gives a slightly less dense texture than just whisking the eggs into the wet ingredients later.

5. Stir in the Carrots, Applesauce and optional Nuts. These ingredients are mixed into the wet ingredients.
   • The applesauce makes the cake perfectly moist without getting too oily or sickeningly sweet (which I find is often the case with store-bought carrot cakes).
   • Use finely shredded carrots. Do not use shredded carrots in a bag from the grocery store, as these are too large.
6. Mix in the Dry Ingredients. Then mix the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. Do this gently using a rubber spatula or wire whisk. When finished, you should no longer see lumps or streaks of flour.

7. Pour and Bake. Distribute the batter evenly between the lined pans and bake in the preheated oven. They will need to bake for about 25-30 minutes for three 8-inch round pans.

Assembling the Cake

Whenever making a layer cake, ensure that the layers are completely cooled before getting started – otherwise the cake layers will melt the frosting. If your cake layers have domed tops – you’ll want to gently saw off the rounded tops. This ensures that the cake layers can sit flat one on top of each other.

You’ll place one cake layer bottom side up on the plate you plan to serve it on. You’ll stack the cake layers using about 3/4 cup of frosting between each layer. Then I recommend doing a thin layer of frosting around the sides of the cake. This is called the cake crumb and helps create a seal so that the frosting doesn’t get dirty with crumbs.

Then you’ll frost swirls of creamy, tangy cream cheese frosting on the sides and top of the cake. I decided to add more chopped walnuts to the sides of the cake – but that’s optional. This cake also looks beautiful with swirls of crema cheese frosting.

Cake Pan Sizes

For this layer cake, you have a few options for pan sizes:

• three 8-inch round (20 cm) cake pans will bake for about 30 minutes
• two 8-inch (20 cm) round cake pans with 2.5 inch (about 5-6 cm) sides will bake for about 35 minutes
• two 9-inch (23 cm) round cake pans will bake for about 30 minutes
• three 8-inch (20 cm) round cake pans will bake for about 30 minutes

**Note – if using two 8-inch cake pans it is imperative that they have very high sides. There is too much batter for two 8-inch sandwich pans (the ones that typically have 1.5 inch sides).

This carrot cake layer cake is great for Easter or whenever you’re looking for the perfect recipe that’s flavorful, moist, not too sweet and looks beautiful. If you’re looking for more carrot desserts & baked goods, then be sure to try:

• Carrot Cake Muffins
• Carrot Banana Bread
• Carrot Cake Sheet Cake – this version is made in a 9×13 inch pan