Carrot Cake Cookies put everything you love about carrot cake into deliciously easy grab and go cookies. Packed full of carrot and cinnamon flavor, and topped with cream cheese frosting, your friends and family will love these quick and flavorful cookies.
If you love carrot cake as much as I do, then I can’t wait for you to try these delicious carrot cake cookies!
I’ve made quite a few carrot cakes over the years, from Carrot Mini Bundt Cakes to Carrot Cake Cupcakes to Carrot Cake Bundt Cake. These carrot cake cookies are a stellar addition to these sweet and spicy carrot dessert recipes.
Reasons You’ll Love These Carrot Cake Cookies:
They bring all the delicious flavors and texture of carrot cake into cookie form.
Soft and chewy, they have an amazing moist texture that everyone loves.
They are topped with a decadent cream cheese frosting that is irresistible.
Need a fun Easter dessert? These are always a hit with friends and family.
Quick and easy to make, they are made and out of the oven in under 30 minutes.
Carrot Cake Cookies Ingredients
This is an overview of the ingredients you will need to make these easy Carrot Cake Cookies. Important notes and substitutions for certain ingredients are discussed. The full printable recipe, with amounts and specific details, can be found at the bottom of the page.
Carrot Cake Cookie Ingredient Notes and Substitutions
- Carrots – I highly recommend grating your carrots yourself. The julienned carrots that are pre-bagged simply do not work as well.
- All-Purpose Flour – All-purpose flour is perfect for these carrot cake cookies. I have not tried them with a gluten free flour, but if you have one you enjoy using in baking, I think it would likely work well in this recipe.
- Cinnamon – I think two teaspoons works well in this recipe, but you can increase or decrease the amount as desired. You could also add in a 1/4 teaspoon of ginger if desired.
- Baking soda and Baking Powder – The combo of these two helps give these cookies a divine cake like texture.
Carrot Cake Cookie Frosting
- If you would like to top these carrot cake cookies with cream cheese frosting, which I highly recommend, you will also need: cream cheese, powdered sugar, vanilla, milk or cream, salt and more butter.
How To Make Carrot Cake Cookies
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and prepare a baking sheet by lining with parchment paper or a silicone mat. Set aside. In a large bowl, use an electric mixer on medium speed to beat together the butter, white sugar and brown sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs and vanilla and beat until fully combined. Set aside.
2. In a second large bowl, combine flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon and salt.
3. Carefully add the dry mixture to the wet mixture until fully combined. Stir in carrots, and nuts if using, and mix until well combined.
4. Using a medium cookie scoop, drop balls of dough, approximately 1-2 tablespoons in size, onto the prepared baking sheet. Space about two inches apart.
5. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until cookies are thoroughly cooked. Allow to cool completely prior to frosting.
6. Prepare frosting and frost or pipe onto carrot cake cookies.
Tips And Advice
Storage: Due to the cream cheese frosting, store these cookies in the refrigerator. They are good for 4-5 days when kept covered in an airtight container the fridge. You can also freeze, in an airtight container, for up to three months.
Grating Carrots: To save time shredding, you can pulse carrots in a blender or food processor to make them fine enough to work with.
Cookie Dough: This cookie dough is more like a batter. It will be thick, moister than regular cookie dough. You will need to drop it directly onto the parchment, without handling it.
Avoid A Sticky Situation: Because these cookies are soft, parchment paper or a silicone mat is highly recommended. If not using parchment, be sure to carefully place a spatula under each cookie while it’s warm but allow it to stay on the baking sheet until completely cool.
Frosting: If you are planning to JUST do a drizzle for the cookies, you can cut the icing quantity in half. Because these cookies have cream cheese frosting which means they should be stored in the fridge.
Add Ins: You can easily add in 1/2 cups of chopped nuts such as pecans or walnuts. Or, if desired, you could add in raisins (if that’s your thing).
Recipe FAQs
Making carrot cake cookies is as easy as mixing together wet ingredients, dry ingredients and baking! This recipe will take you through each easy step.
These cookies have about 300 calories each.
More Cookie Recipes You’ll Love!
Carrot Cake Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup unsalted butter softened
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 1/2 cup light brown sugar
- 2 eggs
- 3 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 2 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 2 teaspoons cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 2 1/2 cups finely shredded carrots*
- optional: finely chopped pecans
Frosting
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter softened
- 8 ounces cream cheese softened
- 4 cups powdered sugar
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 tablespoon milk you can use more or less to reach desired consistency
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and prepare a baking sheet by lining with parchment paper or a silicone mat. Set aside.
- In a large bowl, use an electric mixer on medium speed to beat together the butter, white sugar and brown sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs and vanilla and beat until fully combined. Set aside.
- In a second large bowl, combine flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon and salt. Carefully add the dry mixture to the wet mixture until fully combined. Stir in carrots, and nuts if using, and mix until well combined.
- Using a medium cookie scoop, drop balls of dough, approximately 1-2 tablespoons in size, onto the prepared baking sheet. Space about two inches apart.
- Bake for 10-12 minutes or until cookies are thoroughly cooked. Allow to cool completely prior to frosting.
Frosting
- In a large bowl, use an electric mixer to combine the butter and cream cheese.
- Carefully add salt and powdered sugar, 1 cup at a time until it is fully incorporated. Add the vanilla and milk, using more or less to reach desired consistency.
- Frost cookies or drizzle on as a glaze. The frosting can also be colored and piped onto the cookies.
Notes
Nutrition
Disclaimer
Nutrition information is estimated as a courtesy. If using for medical purposes, please verify information using your own nutritional calculator. Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet.
Michael Jones says
These carrot cake cookies are off the hook. I love them very very much. I’ll make them again for Thanksgiving and Christmas Day.
Donna giblin says
Made today for Easter and they are delicious. Will this icing get hard enough to stack and store?
Christi Johnstone says
No, a butter based frosting really won’t harden much. For a “crusting” frosting, you really need to replace at least half (if not all) of the butter with shortening like Crisco. I rarely tend to make it this way since most people strongly prefer butter over shortening, but that’s pretty much the trick, so to speak, to create a frosting with crust.