This homemade Carrot Cake Cookies recipe gives us the best of both worlds – a soft chewy cookie that tastes just like a moist and flavorful carrot cake! Serve them singularly or sandwich them together with the homemade icing, you won’t want to miss this!
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BEST Carrot Cake Cookies
Of all the flavors of cupcakes and cakes out there, hands down, Carrot Cake is my absolute favorite of them all. What’s funny is, I don’t recall having Carrot Cake at all as a child, but my mom did make homemade zucchini bread, which was quite popular in our household growing up. All I do know with certainty is that, once I did have Carrot Cake for the first time, it was game over, friends. Nothing beats it for me, it is my favorite cake and cupcake recipe, and in honor of my love for these flavors, I created these incredibly moist and cake-like Carrot Cake Cookies.
Carrot Cake Cookies Recipe
When I was small, my mom made her own version of cake “cookie” pops by creating a cake batter and adding dollops to a greased baking sheet and inserting a stick in at the end. She’d frost the top of the cake “cookie” pops, too. If I had to bring some sort of a dish to school from home, that was it. And in all honesty, having these cookies that really tasted like cakes were pretty special to me. She was always one to teach me to do things “out of the box” like this, which is what ultimately fueled me to create my beloved Carrot Cake into this BEST Carrot Cake Cookies recipe.
Simple Carrot Cake Cookies Recipe
The beauty of this easy Carrot Cake Cookies recipe is in its simplicity. Bake it up just like you would the cake, except with a few adjustments to measurements for the desired moist and soft cake-like cookie outcome. Ingredients normally used in a traditional Carrot Cake recipe are used as ingredients in this Carrot Cake Cookies recipe, to include freshly shredded carrots. You can shred them as finely as you’d like!
Soft Carrot Cake Cookies
This soft and chewy Carrot Cake Cookies recipe tastes incredibly made with homemade buttercream, but you could easily make your homemade buttercream into a cream cheese buttercream with the addition of a half cup of cream cheese and a half teaspoon of vanilla extract. I know some people are all about that cream cheese flavor when it comes to making Carrot Cake in any form, which is why I give you the option. I stuck with my tried and true never fail homemade buttercream recipe to decorate these adorable cookies with the fondant carrots on top, but cream cheese buttercream can also be used to complement these cookies, too!
Homemade Carrot Cake Cookies
I’m sure there are great Carrot Cake box mixes out there with the dry ingredients already measured and prepared, but for me, when making Carrot Cake or these Carrot Cake Cookies, I need it all done homemade. I need it measured with my own two hands, with my own measuring cups, my own ingredients poured and mixed. You just can’t beat the realness of a good homemade Carrot Cake recipe, you know?
Easy Carrot Cake Cookies
I use ready-made fondant when decorating most desserts. Not only do I find it easier to work with, as ready-made fondant is perfectly made already, resembling an edible clay and incredibly easy to mold and manipulate the way you need to, but I find it takes less time to make my dessert recipes look amazing! By using ready-made, you can easily double, triple, and duplicate your recipes because this decoration is already prepared for you!
How to Make The BEST Carrot Cake Cookies
To make these delicious Carrot Cake Cookies, you will need the following ingredients:
For the cookies:
- Granulated sugar
- Brown sugar, packed
- Egg
- Softened butter
- All-purpose flour
- Baking soda
- Cinnamon
- Salt
- Shredded carrots
To decorate:
- Softened butter
- Icing sugar
- Milk
- Orange fondant
- Green fondant
You will also need the following tools:
- Rectangular baking sheet
Parchment paper or reusable silicone baking mat - Large bowl
- Sifter
- Electric mixer
- Cheese grater
- Whisk
- Cookie scoop
- Wire rack
- Piping bag with round tip
- Toothpick
To make the cookies, line a baking sheet with parchment paper or use a reusable silicone baking mat and preheat oven to 375 degrees F. In a large bowl, use an electric mixer to beat both sugars, egg, and butter. Mix until creamy.
Using a sifter, sift together flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt.
Add dry ingredients into wet ingredients. Beat with a whisk until batter forms. Add shredded carrots and mix thoroughly.
Using a cookie scoop (or a ¼ measuring cup), scoop mounds of batter on lined baking sheet.
Space your batter mounds to ensure each mound is about 2 inches apart from each other. Bake for 12-15 minutes and allow to cool on a wire rack before decorating.
In order to decorate, you need to make the homemade buttercream. Start out by beating butter, icing sugar, and milk. Once ingredients are smooth and well-combined, scoop into a piping bag with a round tip attached. Frost the center of each cookie.
Roll out 15-20 spheres of orange fondant – about ½ an inch in size. Shape them into cylinders. Take a small piece of green fondant, rolling it into tiny little leaf-like shapes and press one or two onto the top of each orange piece.
Use a toothpick to score lines on the orange fondant to resemble creases in your carrots to help give it a carrot-like texture.
Top each frosted cookie with 1-3 fondant carrots. Serve and enjoy.
If you love Carrot Cake just like I do, I hope you enjoy this incredible Carrot Cake Cookies recipe as well! You’ll find the full recipe below! Please do let me know how you enjoyed making and eating these delectable cake-like cookies, and be sure to check out my other dessert recipes, cookies recipes, as well as my other carrot recipes as well! (Like these amazing Pumpkin Carrot Cake Oatmeal Pancakes recipe!) Check out my friend Mel’s Carrot Cake Sheet Cake recipe, too!
The BEST Carrot Cake Cookies
Ingredients
For the cookies:
- 6 tbsp granulated sugar
- ¼ cup brown sugar packed
- 1 large egg
- 1 stick butter softened
- 1 ¼ cup all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 2 tsp cinnamon
- Pinch salt
- 1 cup shredded carrots
To decorate:
- 1 stick butter softened
- 2 cups icing sugar
- 1-2 tbsp milk
- 2-3 oz. orange fondant
- 1-2 oz. green fondant
Instructions
To make the cookies:
- Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or use a reusable silicone baking mat and preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
- In a large bowl, use an electric mixer to beat both sugars, egg and butter. Mix until creamy.
- Add shredded carrots to the batter and mix thoroughly.
- Using a cookie scoop (or a ¼ measuring cup), scoop mounds of batter on to your lined baking sheet, spacing them about 2 inches apart from each other.
- Bake for 12-15 minutes and allow to cool fully on a wire rack before decorating.
To decorate:
- Make buttercream by beating butter, icing sugar, and milk into a bowl. Once ingredients are smooth and well-combined, scoop into a piping bag with a round tip attached.
- Frost the center of each cookie.
- Roll out 15-20 spheres of orange fondant – about ½ an inch in size. Shape them into cylinders.
- Take a small piece of green fondant , rolling it into tiny little leaf-like shapes and press one or two onto the top of each orange piece.
- Use a toothpick to score lines on the orange fondant to resemble creases in your carrots to help give it a carrot-like texture.
- Top each frosted cookie with 1-3 fondant carrots. Serve and enjoy.
