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