Carrot cake cookies: big cake flavor in a chewy cookie
Carrot cake cookies: filled with coconut and pecans and fresh carrot shreds topped with a generous dollop of cream cheese icing and of course more pecans are yet another way to enjoy the cozy flavor of carrot cake without having to commit to eating a whole piece of said carrot cake.
| Taste | Texture |
| Warm spice + loaded carrot cake + buttery pecan bar | Soft, chewy, creamy |
| Active time | Total time | Yield | Difficulty |
| 20 min | 1 hour | 13 big cookies | Easy |
Carrot cake is a top 5 cake flavor of all time for me. My Mom’s carrot cake is all the flavors and textures of my childhood and it’s the perfect argument against anyone who thinks they don’t like nuts in their bakes. Still, I always find it easier to make cookies like these vs. a whole cake. Cookies are less mess, easier to store, and faster to make. You can also try my carrot cake blondies and carrot cake cinnamon rolls for more carrot cake flavor in non-carrot cake form.
Why you’ll love making carrot cake cookies
- Easy!: These cookies come together easily and quickly. The only weird step is squeezing out the carrots, which only takes a minute.
- Better than the bakery: While I never set out to copy Crumbl cookies, I do always find it interesting when I make a cookie that they also sell. Crumbl’s carrot cake cookie sells for the obscene price of $4.49/cookie and 900 calories. You can just about make an entire batch for that price with no artificial or science ingredients and just 316 calories. Yes, mine don’t have as much frosting, but I’m pretty sure you could double my frosting recipe and still be far under the calorie count.
- Such good flavor: Straight cinnamon in these cookies gives these cookies the perfect carrot cake flavor, but if you add my chai spice blend, you will kick up the flavor to 11. Chai spice blend is SOOOOOO good in these cookies since it compliments the earthy taste of the carrots. Of course you can use a combination of cinnamon and nutmeg in its place. Periodically I make a batch of my homemade spice blends to have on hand because they make everything taste 1000% better.
Don’t skip this step if you want to make the best carrot cake cookies
Just like with carrot cake cinnamon rolls and my oatmeal zucchini cookies it is crucial that you press the juice out of the carrots.
Carrots don’t seem as juicy as something like zucchini, but trust me, if you skip this step, you could easily end up with cookies that are so soggy that they’ll never bake fully. That happened on my first round of the carrot cake cinnamon rolls, and I don’t want that to happen to you.
Simply grate your carrot over a few paper towels or a piece of cheesecloth. I use a nut milk bag. When you’re done grating, gather the towel around the shreds and squeeze out as much juice as you can.
Bonus: if you are using a nut milk bag to squeeze out the juice, squeeze it over a glass and drink that carrot juice. Mmmm, so sweet and refreshing.
Ingredients for Carrot Cake Cookies
Carrot Cake cookie dough
- Carrot
- Cold-pressed sunflower or avocado oil
- Fresh squeezed orange juice
- Vanilla extract or vanilla paste
- Butter, at room temperature
- Granulated sugar
- Powdered sugar
- Egg
- Zest from 1 orange, grated
- All-purpose flour
- Chai spice blend or cinnamon + nutmeg
- Baking soda
- Cream of tartar
- Salt
- Coconut flakes
- Chopped pecans or walnuts: level up these cookies with maple candied pecans. You’ll thank me later.
Cream cheese icing
- Cream cheese
- Powdered sugar
- Butter
- Vanilla extract or paste
- Orange juice
Equipment needed
- Two 1/2 sheet pans
- Cookie scoop (I’m using a Vollrath yellow scoop which is 2 ounces)
- Pastry bag with any decorative tip you like. A plain tip or a star tip is great.
How to make the best carrot cake cookies every single time
- Dry the carrots: Yes, I’ve said it twice because it is so nice. Don’t skip it. Moisture will break up that cookie matrix and make you a pile of spread out carrot pancake things, not cookies.
- Chill the dough: Carrot cake cookie dough like many of my soft sugar cookies is very soft and needs some time to firm up the butter and for the dough to absorb the dry ingredients. The fridge also allows the spice flavor to mellow slightly. Spice cookies always taste better on day 2. Don’t believe me? I dare you to make a batch of pfferernusse and test my theory.
- Scoop: If you want to make consistent, pretty cookies, use a good quality scoop. I have loved my Vollrath scoops for their sturdy build. I’ve never had one fail and I make thousands of cookies in a year. Here a 2 ounce scoop (Vollrath yellow scoop ) is the perfect size.
- Don’t overbake: You want that soft center for the cake feel. Take the cookies out once you can no longer make an indentation on the centers of the cookies when you touch them. That’ll take 12-14 minutes and no more.
- Counter-clockwise Swirl: You do not have to be a professional cake decorator to make these cookies look nice. After you fill your piping bag with frosting. Squeeze from the top of your piping bag counterclockwise to make a swirl. If it’s not perfect, no one will care. Sprinkle some pecans on there and know you can practice piping another day. No piping bag? Cut off the corner of a ziploc bag and squeeze out stripes instead.
- Save some goodies for the top: Save a few carrot shreds and pecans for the top of the cookies. It will add a little more color and remind you what you’re eating.
Carrot cake cookies
- Total Time: about 1 hour
- Yield: 13 big cookies 1x
Description
The earthy flavor of vivid bright carrots pairs with sweet chai spice, coconut, and pecans to create a chewy, soft cookie with all the good flavor of carrot cake without the mess.
Ingredients
Carrot cake sugar cookie dough
- 1 large carrot
- 4 tablespoons oil (preferably cold-pressed safflower or sunflower, see note) (60 mL)
- 2 Tablespoons fresh squeezed orange juice
- 1 teaspoons vanilla extract or vanilla paste
- 1 sticks butter, at room temperature (113 g)
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar (100 g)
- 1/2 cup powdered sugar (60 g)
- 1 large egg
- Zest from 1 orange, grated
- 2 cups + 2 Tablespoons all-purpose flour (276 g)
- 1 teaspoon chai spice blend or 3/4 teaspoon cinnamon and 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup coconut flakes
- 1/2 cup chopped pecans
Orange cream cheese icing
- 2 oz cream cheese, softened (56 g)
- 6 Tablespoons powdered sugar (45 g)
- 2 Tablespoons butter (28 g)
- 2 tablespoons orange juice
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract or paste
Instructions
Make the cookie dough
- Grate the carrot over paper towels or a piece of cheesecloth. Fold the towel around the carrots and squeeze out as much of the juice as possible.
- Whisk the oil together with the vanilla and the orange juice.
- Beat the butter in a stand mixer or with a hand mixer just to soften it. Slowly drizzle in the oil with the mixer on until you have a smooth mixture of butter and oil.
- Add in the sugars and beat to combine.
- Mix in the egg and orange zest. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, and then mix for a few more seconds until you have a very smooth batter.
- Whisk the flour, baking soda, cream of tartar and salt in another bowl.
- With the mixer on, slowly add the flour to the liquid mixture just until combined.
- Stir in the carrot shreds, 1/3 cup of the pecans and the coconut.
- Chill the dough for 30 minutes.
Bake the cookies
- Preheat the oven to 350 F (180 C). Line 2 sheet trays with parchment .
- Place 6 balls on a sheet tray for baking. You should be able to bake both trays at the same time.
- Bake the cookies for 7 minutes, and then rotate the sheets 180 degrees and then swap the racks each one is on for the other rack. Bake the cookies for 6-7 more minutes until the middles no longer make an indentation if you poke them.
- Allow the cookies to cool for about 5 minutes before moving them to a cooling rack to finish cooling.
Decorating the cookies
- Beat together the cream cheese frosting ingredients until creamy and fluffy.
- Scrape the frosting into a piping bag with any decorative tip you have. Pipe a rosette of frosting in the middle of each cookie. Sprinkle the rest of the pecans on the top of the frosting and maybe a little more cinnamon and some carrot shreds if you’d like.
- Store the cookies in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 1 week. You can also freeze these cookies or the dough itself for up to 3 months.
Notes
Change up your nuts: Walnuts are equally good here with carrot cake, although if you want the ultimate carrot cake cookie, use some maple candied pecans. If you don’t eat them first, the candied pecans will make these cookies incredible.
Change up your spices: I prefer chai spice blend in these cookies for the complex flavors of cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, allspice, nutmeg, star anise, and coriander . Equally good would be apple pie spice (cinnamon + nutmeg + vanilla sugar) or pumpkin pie spice (cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, allspice, and cloves). These might sound like subtle differences and they are, but trust me, once you make your own spice blends once, you’ll be using them in all your bakes because they pack so much extra flavor. Spice it like you mean it!
A note on oil: I’ve moved away from using industrial seed oils in my cooking. For these cookies, you really do want the softness that oil gives to baked goods. As such, try to use neutral unrefined, high oleic or cold pressed oils like safflower, sunflower. La Tourangelle makes some really good oils that will change how you think about oil. Olive oil is good too, though it gives these cookies a distinct Mediterranean flavor (add some lemon or orange zest if you do use olive oil and they’ll taste like Sicily).
- Prep Time: 20 minutes
- + 30 minutes chilling time:
- Cook Time: 14 minutes
- Category: Cookies
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
