Chewy Carrot Cake Cookies With Cream Cheese Frosting
I love carrot cake in the spring, but it’s even delicious in the summer too! These carrot cake cookies with cream cheese frosting taste just like a delicious, layered carrot cake, but don’t take nearly as much work! They are soft, chewy, and full of yummy carrot cake flavor. When you top them with some luscious cream cheese frosting, you have yourself one scrumptious little treat! Make these for your next gathering, or just have them on hand for an after school or mid-afternoon snack! They won’t last long sitting around on your kitchen counter – they are just that good!
While I do love a thick, layered carrot cake with gobs of luscious cream cheese frosting, that can be a lot of work and a lot of leftovers! So I decided to whip up these chewy carrot cake cookies – they really are cake-like, soft, and full of cinnamon-y carrot cake flavor! Topped with cream cheese frosting of course, because what is carrot cake without the cream cheese frosting?!
Read on for how to make these easy little carrot cake cookies!
Ingredients
The great thing about these carrot cake cookies is that you can whip them up with just a few ingredients that you likely already have on hand!
- Unsalted Butter
- Brown Sugar
- Granulated Sugar
- Eggs
- Flour
- Baking Soda
- Cream of Tartar
- Spices – Cinnamon, Ginger, Nutmeg, Cloves
- Salt
- Shredded Carrots
- Quick Oats
- Chopped Pecans (optional) – Use any chopped nut you want or even substitute shredded coconut or raisins!
- Cream Cheese
- Vanilla Extract
- Powdered Sugar
Tips for Making the Best Chewy Carrot Cake Cookies
In order to make these cookies the chewiest and most cakey carrot cake cookies, follow my tips below!
Don’t use pre-shredded carrots. Pre-shredded carrots are super convenient, but I like to shred my own from whole carrots because they have extra moisture when they are fresh. This makes the cookies super tender!
Use equal parts cream of tartar and baking soda. I’ve learned that using a combo of both baking soda and cream of tartar in cookies makes them super thick, chewy, and delicious! Cream of tartar helps the cookies rise better, giving them a more fluffy and chewy texture.
Use room temperature ingredients. This helps everything come together better without the risk of overmixing! If you overmix, the texture of the carrot cake cookies will not be as cake-like and fluffy.
Use a cookie scoop. This will help you get the most uniform and round cookies! It makes it much easier to portion out your dough. I used a 1.5 tbsp scoop for these cookies, but feel free to use what you have – just be sure to adjust the baking time if your cookies are larger or smaller!
High Altitude Instructions for Cookies
For reference, I live at 5,800 feet. These adjustments would likely give you the result that you are looking for if you live within a few hundred feet of where I am at. But high altitude baking can be a lot of trial and error! This should give you a starting point to go off of to experiment with your own ingredients at whatever elevation you live at! I would also recommend checking out this guide here.
High Altitude Adjustments for Carrot Cake Cookies
- Flour – increase by 2 tbsp. Additional flour helps to strengthen the structure of the baked good so that it will rise correctly.
- Brown Sugar – decrease by 1 tbsp. This should hold true at most high elevations. Always decrease your sugars by 1 tbsp. per cup.
- Granulated Sugar – decrease by 1/2 tbsp. Same reasoning as for the brown sugar.
- Baking Soda– decrease to 1/4 tsp. You can see this table on King Arthur’s website for how to adjust leavening agents for higher elevations (scroll down a ways to the “Leavening” section on their site). For my elevation, I typically cut all leavening agents in half. This allows for the right chemical reactions to happen between the other ingredients for the perfect rise. If there is too much leavening within the batter, not all of it gets used up (not all of it reacts with the other ingredients). You are then left over with a soapy bitter-tasting baked good due to the excess baking soda or baking powder in the batter.
- Cream of Tartar- decrease to 1/4 tsp. Same reasoning as for other leavening agents.
- Increase oven temperature to 380° F. Since rising and evaporation proceed more quickly at higher elevations, you will want to use a higher baking temperature to set the structure of the baked goods so that they don’t sink in the middle and dry out on the edges. I recommend starting with increasing the baking temperature stated in the recipe by 10° F – 15° F and going up from there in small increments (all the way up to 25° F increase if needed).
- Decrease baking time by 5 or more minutes. This is because you will be baking at a higher temperature. You don’t want your dessert to burn! I usually decrease by 5-8 minutes per 30 minutes of baking time and adjust from there. Keep a close eye on your dessert in the oven while you are experimenting with time and baking temps.
I hope that you enjoy these chewy little carrot cake cookies!
Chewy Carrot Cake Cookies With Cream Cheese Frosting
Recipe details
- 36 cookies
- Prep time: 25 Minutes Cook time: 12 Minutes Total time: 37 min
Comments
Share your thoughts, or ask a question!
I live at 5800’ too, but I’m confused. So is the recipe what you use or do I still need to adjust for altitude? I used to live a few thousand feet higher and had to constantly adjust. I moved lower for my health and find my baking has improved, which doesn’t help my health! 😂