“If there’s no cream cheese, there’s almost no point in making carrot cake."

Bold statement! We ask some makers of outstanding carrot cake – including a vegan version! – if this is true.

American Southern-style carrot cake Source: Poh & Co.

Carrot cake lovers, what say you? Is carrot cake merely an excuse to enjoy cream cheese? Is it not even worth making carrot cake if it doesn’t end up topped with a generous layer of thick, creamy, sweet-but-slightly-tangy icing?

After hearing one of the SBS Food Channel 33 stars declare “there’s almost no point making carrot cake” if it didn’t end up with cream cheese frosting (more on that in a moment), we found ourselves pondering this extremely important question – and very quickly developing a really, really strong hankering to dig a fork into a slice of hearty, most, carrot-flecked cake with a generous swathe of creamy frosting. Seriously, who wouldn’t want to indulge when “research” means looking at cake like this?

That very tempting carrot and hazelnut cake is from Beatrix Bakes, a small bakery in Melbourne with a big following among those who appreciate great cakes and bakes. Nat Paull, who opened Beatrix Bakes in 2011, has been delighting the city’s cake lovers for many years (fans might recall her previous venture, Little Bertha, a wholesale bakery).

“I love carrot cake and I could talk about it all day!” she says when we get in touch to talk cake and cream cheese. So could we Nat, so could we! So where does she stand on cream cheese frosting?

“I do put cream cheese on our carrot cake – they go together like Monica and Chandler – but I opt to whip the cream cheese into a white chocolate custard-based buttercream. This makes for 'satiny swathes sans the saccharine' of a traditional icing-sugar-based frosting, which I very much dislike,” she says.

The Beatrix Bakes carrot cake is just a little different, too.

“Carrot cakes are usually studded with walnuts but one day at Beatrix Bakes, we didn’t have enough for the batch so my baker Natasha subbed in toasted hazelnuts  - always toast nuts for cake batters for more flavour - and our version was officially born. The hazelnuts share this extraordinary earthiness to complement the carrots, with the batter made even better if you double down and use hazelnut oil in place of vegetable oil.

“Then, to gild the carrot cake lily even further, I sometimes make a version with a thin round of baked cheesecake slipped between two carrot cake layers. It’s next-level caking.”

There are some other excellent cake-makers in the “Yes, absolutely!” camp on the cream cheese question, too.

Desiree Nielsen, cookbook author and host of SBS Food’s The Urban Vegetarian declares if there's no cream cheese, "there’s almost no point in making the carrot cake,” as she bakes her version of the classic in the show. “Everyone knows that carrots are healthy, right?  That essentially means that carrot cake is a vegetable.  And I’m a dietitian, I should know!” she jokes.

Desiree's carrot cake with cream cheese icing Source: Desiree Nielsen

When we chatted to Nielsen recently about everything from falafel waffles to cauliflower pizza, of course, we asked about carrot cake too.

“Traditional cake recipes tend to be so heavy on the sugar and oil, but I like eating cake more than once in a while so I up the sweetness and moisture level with fruit,” she explained.

But while she has tweaked the cake recipe  – her version uses apple puree instead of some of the oil and sugar and is made with whole wheat flour – she’s on the side of tradition when it comes to the frosting.

“Cream cheese is life!” she says. Her carrot cake is topped with cream cheese, maple syrup and vanilla icing. It is, she says “essentially like two desserts in one. It’s kind of like a cheesecake on top of a carrot cake”.

Nadine Ingram, of outstanding Sydney bakery Flour & Stone, is another dedicated fan of cream cheese. “Everyone knows carrot cake is just a vehicle for cream cheese frosting,” she declares in her recipe for wholesome carrot cake, which appears in her Flour and Stone cookbook (find it and more of her recipes from the book here).

Nadine says her "wholesome carrot cake" reflects the type of wholesome "that makes you smile and feel there can be no wrong in the world". Source: Alan Benson

But what if you don’t eat dairy? Is your enjoyment of carrot cake doomed? No, indeed it is not. The first option is to use a dairy-free cream cheese (or, if your dairy issue relates specifically to cow’s milk, you could try a mild-flavoured spreadable goat’s cheese).

“If you don’t have a great dairy-free cream cheese available, I would make your own with cashews and lemon juice because buttercream is just a second-rate substitute in my opinion - ha!” says Nielsen.

Others are even more inventive. Take this inviting slice, from Sydney and Wollongong’s Kürtősh.  

While known for kürtőskalács,  the spiral Hungarian pastries, the four cafes also make a tempting range of other cakes and pastries, including a vegan carrot cake. “On our carrot cake, you will find a tropical vegan icing which is made out of ginger and pineapple,” Kürtősh co-owner  Ben Haikin tells us. Fresh pineapple is dried in the oven, then whipped with vegan margarine. A little rum and sugar are added to create the frosting. And the secret to a great carrot cake? “Lots of love, quality ingredients as well as having all flavours working harmonically together, and it needs to be fairly light when it comes to its texture,” Haikin says.

Another option: the date, banana and nut butter combo in this recipe for a vegan carrot cake with caramel frosting, shared with us by popular blogger Ella Woodward, of Deliciously Ella.

Ella's carrot cake uses chia seeds instead of eggs, and a clever banana-date frosting. Source: Clare Winfield

You could also skip the icing altogether - this carrot, hazelnut and beetroot loaf cake, which you could call a cousin of the classic, makes the crunchiness of toasted hazelnuts the star, in a loaf that's great to take to a picnic:

Carrot, hazelnut and beetroot loaf cake Source: China Squirrel

And if you're okay with dairy but looking for other ways to put a delicious spin on the classic, how about Nik Sharma's masala chai carrot cake recipe, which adds aromatic spices including cardamom, ginger and cinnamon to the cake, and layers it with a cream-cheese and sour cream frosting:

Masala chai carrot cake Source: Nik Sharma

And finally, for those who really do see carrot cake as a platform for LOTS of cream cheese, we offer you this southern American-style carrot cake recipe. Three layers of cake means two layers of frosting in the cake, and plenty left to cover the sides and top too!

American Southern-style carrot cake - with plenty of frosting! Source: Poh & Co.

Find more spins on the classic in SBS Food's carrot cake recipe collection, including these: