This mini carrot cake is made in a square pan, snack cake style! It's topped with whipped cream and cream cheese frosting, so this entire cake recipe is made without butter! The cream cheese frosting is super light and airy, thanks to the addition of whipped cream. The carrot cake is packed with walnuts, but you can swap that for pistachios. This carrot snack cake is perfect for Spring or Easter celebrations, and you don't even need a mixer to make the cake.

A slice of mini carrot cake with cream cheese frosting and chopped walnuts.

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My pistachio carrot cake is one of my favorite recipes on here and one of my earliest! I wanted to make a lil version of this and ta-da, here we are! I did swap out the pistachios for walnuts, but you can easily switch them out.

I originally was going to frost this with a brown butter cream cheese frosting, but I wanted something super light and fluffy. My cream cheese frosting without butter uses a whipped cream base, making it like a little cloud!

I made this cake in an 8-inch square cake pan, but you can also use a 9-inch round pan. If you love a lil' snack cake like me, you need to also try my mini strawberry snack cake!

Want more Easter recipes? Try out fudgy mini egg brownies, mini egg cookies, or lemon bars with a graham cracker crust.

Baking with Carrots

The temptation to use ready-shredded carrots is huge, I get it. But it's so important to use freshly grated carrots! Those bags of shredded carrots at the grocery store are going to be dry and hard, and it's going to make your cake dense. It's a no from me.

If you shred your carrots, you'll notice how much moisture they have. And that's what we want! Freshly shredded carrots are going to make your carrot cake super moist.

I used my food processor to shred them, but you can also use a box grater.

Key Ingredients

All the ingredients needed to make a mini carrot cake with whipped cream cream cheese frosting weighed out into small bowls.

Carrots: As I mentioned above, make sure you're using freshly grated carrots!
Chopped Walnuts: I love adding walnuts; it's a classic combo, but you can swap them out for an equal amount of chopped pecans or pistachios.
Eggs: Is there one egg here and you actually need two in the recipe? Yup! Rookie mistake when I was photographing all the ingredients.
Oil: Using a neutral oil like sunflower, vegetable, or canola oil is going to make this carrot cake extra moist and soft. You want something without a strong taste or smell.
Spices: I'm using a lil' combo of cinnamon, ginger, and cardamom - my favorite spices!
Heavy Cream: This frosting recipe doesn't use butter, instead, we'll whip up heavy cream until we have whipped cream and add the cream cheese to that!

Let's make this recipe!

You can find the full recipe below, but let's walk through the steps!

Step 1: Preheat the oven to 350°F and grease and line an 8x8 baking pan. In a bowl, whisk the oil, sugar, eggs, and vanilla extract together.

Step 2: Stir in the dry ingredients and then the freshly grated carrots and walnuts.

Step 3: Pour into your prepared pan. Bake in the oven for 30-40 minutes; a toothpick inserted should come out clean. Let cool in the pan for 20 minutes before removing to a wire cooling rack to cool completely.

Step 4: Once cool, make the frosting. Whisk the heavy cream, salt, sugar, and vanilla until thick. Add the cream cheese and beat until smooth. Frost your cake and enjoy!

A close up of a square slice of a mini carrot snack cake with cream cheese frosting.

My Baking Tips

I will sound like a broken record, but please use a kitchen scale! I test all of my recipes with a kitchen scale and not measuring cups because it's the most accurate way to bake. PLUS, it means fewer dishes for you - yay!
Make sure the cake has cooled completely before you even think about starting the frosting. Warm cake + cold frosting = bad time.
Usually, I say you want your ingredients to be room temperature, but this time, we want the frosting ingredients to be cold. That way we get a thick cream cheese frosting instead of a gloopy one.

Storage & Make-Ahead Instructions

Keep the frosted cake in an airtight container in the fridge for 4-5 days.

You can make the cake up to 3 days ahead, just wrap it tightly in plastic wrap and store in the fridge until ready to frost!

A slice of mini carrot cake with cream cheese frosting on a small plate.

Make these carrot recipes next!

Ella from Alpine Ella is holding a cake stand with cupcakes on it.

Made This Recipe?

Make sure to leave a ⭐️ rating and review below! You can tag me on Instagram @alpineella or follow along on Pinterest, Facebook and TikTok!

Thank you!

Ella