This carrot cake contains all the usual ingredients that make carrot cake distinct — carrots, cinnamon, walnuts — but with a bit (or more than a bit) more of everything!
The cream cheese frosting is mostly cream cheese with just enough butter to make it fluffy. I add orange zest and juice, because my mom added orange to hers (in her case a spoonful of frozen orange juice from concentrate; it was the 1970s after all), a trick she learned from a recipe she clipped from our local newspaper. So we’ve gone full circle. Carrot and orange is a natural pairing, so I’m not sure why orange isn’t always a part of the frosting. It should be.
One of the great, mysterious miracles in baking is that carrot cake gets even more moist with time. Once the cake cools in the pan, you can wrap the pan, or take it out of the pan and wrap the cake in plastic wrap. Leave it at room temperature or refrigerate it for up to 2 days before frosting it.
