This is one of my oldest carrot cake recipes which I call The Mrs. Fields' Carrot Cake because it's adapted from a different recipe from Debbie Fields. Looking at it now, I don't think I should have called it "Mrs. Fields" because I made so many changes. But that's what it goes by and it's what I have been making on and off for years. Usually I make carrot cake with oil, but this carrot cake cake is all about the butter.

Mrs. Fields' Carrot Cake recipe with three sticks of butter and cream cheese frosting

Everything Style Carrot Cake

This is an "everything style" carrot cake with walnuts, raisins, pineapple and coconut. I refuse to make it if I am missing any one of those elements. Well, except the coconut. It's fine without the coconut. But I recommend keeping the pineapple. I suspect the pineapple and the juices that seep out it of react with the baking soda, which is why there is so much baking soda.

Tablespoon of Baking Soda

This seems like a lot of baking soda, but it reacts with the acid from the pineapple and brown sugar. It also makes the cake darker, which is a quality I like in carrot cake. For a lighter colored and less dense carrot cake OR if you are leaving out the pineapple, you can use 2 teaspoons of baking soda and 1 teaspoon of baking powder. I like the dark color of the baking soda version. For the cake in the photo below, I baked two layers with the baking soda and baking powder combo and 1 layer with baking soda. Can you tell which layer has the soda?

Mixing Method

To keep the cake dense and heavy, this cake calls for a slightly different mixing method -- one similar to the two stage method, but not quite the same. You mix all the dry ingredients, add partially melted butter then mix well with one of the eggs. You then add the remaining eggs and other ingredients, beating until everything is well combined. The cake should look like this.

Carrot cake baked in a 9-inch round cake pan.

Two 9-inch or Three 8-inch

This cake can be prepared as two 9-inch layers or three 8-inch layers. If you make the three layer version you'll need to make 1 ½ times the frosting. If you want to make it as a smaller cake but still layered, you can make ⅔ of the recipe and use two 8-inch pans. I haven't tested a 6-inch version yet, but I think a half batch would fit nicely between two 6-inch round cake pans.

If you try the cake, let me know what you think! It's definitely a moist carrot cake, and the extra butter adds to the flavor. That being said, there are a lot of great oil based cake with tons of flavor from the spices and there are some good cakes made with honey and maple syrup. My personal favorite is Divorce Cake.

Recipe