5 Reasons to Try These Carrot Cake Cookies
Carrot cake cookies are one of my kids’ favorite cookies, even if they are made with vegetables. I’ll admit though, I think a lot of their love for them has to do with the cream cheese frosting piled on top! A lot of thought and care went into developing this recipe all those years ago. I wanted cookies that were soft and moist, but still sturdy enough to hold copious amounts of frosting. They also needed to have enough flavor to be delicious even on their own, without a frosting crown. It took a few tries to get them just right, but here we are!
Ingredients
I’ll highlight a few of the main ingredients in the cookies, and then we’ll briefly go over the frosting. SAM’S TIP: If you’d like, you can absolutely add ½-1 cup of raisins to your carrot cake cookies. Personally, I don’t like raisins, so I don’t add them.
For the Cream Cheese Frosting
Cream cheese. Just like when making my cheesecake, I recommend using full-fat, brick style cream cheese for this cream cheese frosting. Using the low-fat or spreadable kind sold in tubs would make for a runny frosting, and we really don’t want that with a handheld dessert like these carrot cake cookies! Cornstarch. To make our frosting even more sturdy and thick, we’ll add just a little bit of cornstarch. There’s already cornstarch in the powdered sugar, but adding this amount ups the ratio and helps keep the frosting stable on the cookie. Butter. I use salted butter in the frosting; this helps balance the sweetness and round out the flavor. If you only have unsalted butter on hand, add a heaping ¼ teaspoon of salt to your frosting. Sugar. Yes, that is a lot of sugar, but we are frosting nearly three dozen cookies, after all! Note that reducing the sugar will affect how sturdy your frosting is, so stick with the recipe on this one. Vanilla. Just a splash of vanilla gives the frosting a subtle depth of flavor. If you have some homemade vanilla extract left over from the holidays, feel free to use it here!
This is just an overview of the ingredients I used and why. For the full recipe please scroll down to the bottom of the post!
How to Make Carrot Cake Cookies
SAM’S TIP: While not completely necessary, some orange and green sprinkles will give your carrot cake cookies even more of a carrot cake look! I just picked up green and orange sequin sprinkles a few years ago from my local grocery store, but colored sanding sugar would be really cute, too! Love baking with carrots? I have a carrot muffin recipe coming for you very soon! Enjoy! Let’s bake together! Subscribe to my newsletter to be notified of all the newest recipes, and find my free recipe tutorials on YouTube 💜 This post was originally published 4/13/2015, recipe is unchanged.
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