These Carrot Cake Cookies are soft, cakey, crunchy, creamy and taste incredibly delicious. Soft and cakey cookies combined with crunchy pecans and creamy cream cheese frosting. These cookies are definitely a crowd pleaser. No chilling time required. This recipe is easy and quick to make and turns out perfectly every time.
Because we head towards Easter, it’s carrot cake high-season. But hey. Why just making carrot cake? These Carrot Cake Cookies are my way to celebrate that time a year.
They are soft and cakey and taste exactly like carrot cake but just in cookie shape. Carrots, pecans, brown sugar, cinnamon, cream cheese. I think you can already imagine how delicious they are, don’t you?
How to make the best Carrot Cake Cookies?
These cookies are straightforward and super easy to make.
First Step: Prepare the cookies
Start with melting the butter in the microwave until about 1/2 – 2/3 melted. Then stir until fully melted. Transfer to a large mixing bowl and add brown and white sugar. Mix with a handheld or stand mixer fitted with a paddle or whisk attachment on medium-low speed just until combined, about 1 minute.
Then add eggs and vanilla to the butter mixture and stir just until combined.
Add all-purpose flour, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon and mix to combine.
Look out for toasted unsalted pecans or toast them on your own. Therefore place them on a parchment paper layered baking sheet and bake for 15 minutes at 300°F / 150°C. Stir every 5 minutes. Then remove from the oven and let cool for 10 minutes. If you toast your pecans, you could start with that and then start with the cookie dough.
Fold pecans and shredded carrots into the cookie dough until well combined.
Second Step: Bake the cookies
To have evenly sized cookies, I recommend the following method because it is the most accurate: weigh cookie dough and divide by 24. In this case, you make sure that all cookies are evenly in texture and size.
You will notice that the cookie dough is quite sticky and not as dry as regular cookie dough. That is supposed to be like this. These are soft and cakey cookies, not chewy ones.
Arrange 6-8 cookies on one baking sheet with about 2-3 inches space in-between. Bake one sheet after another for about 12-14 minutes. Remove from oven when they look pale, puffy, and dry. Let cool for about 5-10 minutes until they are firm enough to move them. Then transfer the cookies to a cooling rack and let cool completely.
Third Step: Prepare cream cheese filling
In a large mixing bowl, mix room temperature unsalted butter on medium-high speed until soft and creamy, about 1-2 minutes.
Then add softened cream cheese and mix until combined. Brick style cream cheese should be room temperature for best mixing results. Spreadable cream cheese can be used straight out of the fridge. Either way, I recommend using Philadelphia cream cheese.
Sift in powdered sugar and add vanilla and stir until creamy and combined.
Fourth Step: Fill the cookies
Spread cream cheese evenly over the bottom of 12 cookies. Then place the remaining 12 cookies on top of the cream cheese.
You could add some chopped pecans to the frosting if desired.
Tips for perfectly baked carrot cookies
- Do not overmix at any time. Just until combined at every step.
- Measure the ingredients correctly. Spoon and level the flour in the measuring cup.
- Weigh and divide the cookie batter by 24.
- Do not overbake the cookies. Remove them when they look dry and pale.
How to freeze Carrot Cake Cookies?
Although Carrot Cake Cookies are best eaten fresh, it is possible to freeze them up to 3 months. Therefore, let cookies cool completely and tightly wrap each cookie in plastic wrap. Then put the separately wrapped cookies in freezer bags and remove as much air as possible. To thaw them, remove from the freezer, unwrap, and let sit on the counter to come to room temperature. This takes about 1 hour.
Then make the frosting as described. I don’t recommend freezing filled cookies nor unbaked cookie dough. Both cases have a negative impact on the texture of the cookies.
How to store Carrot Cake Cookies?
Filled cookies need to be stored in the fridge and last up to 2 days. The longer they are in the fridge, the softer and wetter they get because of the moisture of the cream cheese. Cream Cheese filled Carrot Cake Cookies are best eaten within the first two days.
Unfilled cookies can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature. The cream cheese filling needs to be stored in the fridge. That’s the way I prefer to store my cookies. Just before serving, I fill as many cookies as I want to eat and store the remaining cookies separately. In this case, the cookies stay fresh for 3 days.
Small batch Carrot Cake Cookies
This recipe yields 12 Carrot Cake Cookie Sandwiches. However, if you don’t plan to eat that many cookies, you could divide the recipe in half. In this case, you end up with 6 cookie sandwiches.
Substitutions
Well, I don’t recommend to substitute anything else but the mix-ins. I tested these cookies with gluten-free flour, no egg, vegan, etc. and they all didn’t turn out as they should.
You could eat the cookies unfilled without any frosting at all.
If you make this Carrot Cake Cookies recipe leave a comment, rate it and tag a photo #alsothecrumbsplease on Instagram! Would love to see your snap!
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These Carrot Cake Cookies are soft, cakey, crunchy, creamy and taste incredibly delicious. Soft and cakey cookies combined with crunchy pecans and creamy cream cheese frosting. These cookies are definitely a crowd pleaser. No chilling time required. This recipe is easy and quick to make and turns out perfectly every time.
- 1 cup unsalted butter, melted (226g)
- 1 cup granulated white sugar (200g)
- 1/2 cup light brown sugar (100g)
- 2 large eggs
- 2 vanilla beans* (or 2 tsp vanilla extract)
- 3+1/2 cups all-purpose flour, spooned and leveled (420g)
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp salt
- 1+1/2 tsp cinnamon
- 2 cups grated carrots (240g)
- 1 cup toasted unsalted pecans** (125g)
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature (113g)
- 3/4 cup cream cheese, softened (169g)
- 1 cup powdered sugar, sifted (120g)
- 1 vanilla bean* (or 1 tsp vanilla extract)
Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C). Line two or three baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.
Microwave butter until 1/2 - 2/3 melted. Then stir until it's completely liquid. Transfer together with the sugars to a large mixing bowl and stir with a handheld or stand mixer fitted with a paddle or whisk attachment on medium-low speed just until combined, about 1 minute. Add eggs and vanilla* and mix for about 30 seconds just until combined. Add flour, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon, and mix just until combined. Don’t overmix at any step. Fold in carrots and pecans.
Scoop 24 equally sized balls of cookie dough and arrange 6-8 cookie dough balls on one baking sheet with about 2-3 inches space in-between. Bake one sheet after another for about 12-14 minutes. Remove from oven when they look dry, puffy and pale. Let cool for about 5-10 minutes until they are firm enough to move them. Then transfer the cookies to a cooling rack and let cool completely.
In a large mixing bowl, using a handheld or stand mixer fitted with a whisk or paddle attachment, mix butter on medium-high speed until soft and creamy about 1-2 minutes. Add cream cheese and stir until smooth and creamy, about 1-2 minutes. Sift in powdered sugar and add vanilla* and mix until combined and creamy. If the frosting is too soft to spread, add more powdered sugar little by little (up to ½ cup). When adding more powdered sugar, you may want to add a pinch of salt to cut down the sweetness.
Fill frosting into the cookies. Store in an airtight container in the fridge up to 2 days.***
Recipe Video
*First, cut off the straight end of the vanilla bean. Then place the tip of your sharp knife below the curled end and cut the vanilla bean through the middle of the bean lengthwise. Although you don't need to cut it all the way through, it's ok when you do so. Then open the vanilla bean and scrape out the flavorful seeds with the back of your knife. Just use the seeds.
**If you don't have toasted pecans, you can easily toast them on your own. Therefore preheat oven to 300°F / 150°C. Place pecans on a parchment paper layered baking sheet and bake for 15 minutes. Stir every 5 minutes. Let cool to room temperature.
SUBSTITUTIONS
Replace the pecans with any kind of mix-ins you love or just leave them out. You also could eat the cookies unfilled without any cream cheese filling.
RECOMMENDATION
- Read the blog post for additional information on how to make, ***store (detailed instructions and recommendations), and freeze carrot cake cookies.
- Watch step-by-step photos to see the required consistency in every step.
- Watch the 58-seconds video to see the whole process of making the cookies.
Hi! When you say equally sized balls what measurement are you using ? Thanks!
Hi, I use a kitchen scale and divide the cookie dough by 24.
Das sieht und hört sich total lecker an. Das muss ich unbedingt mal ausprobieren. Mal schauen, vielleicht isst das sogar meine kleine Tochter 🙂
Thank you so much! I’m sure your little sunshine would love them! 🙂