While traditionally carrot cake is only made around Easter, I’m almost positive that you’ll want to make this chai spiced carrot cake loaf at any given time during the year!

In fact, I’ve made this in place of my birthday cake for the past few years!

Ingredients

For the carrot cake:

• Eggs
• All-purpose flour
• Grated carrots
• Vegetable oil
• Sugar
• Brown sugar, packed
• Baking powder
• Vanilla extract
• Salt
• Optional: Cream cheese frosting

For the chai spice mix:

• Ground ginger
• Cinnamon
• Cardamom
• Ground nutmeg
• Ground cloves

I’m a huge fan of plain ol’ carrot cake, but the chai spice mixture adds the most beautiful flavor to this carrot cake loaf. If you’re looking for a way to elevate your carrot cake game, you don’t want to skip the chai spice!

Note: This carrot cake loaf is beautiful with or without cream cheese frosting, which is why I said the frosting is optional. However, it balances out the flavors and adds such a nice touch so I do recommend using it at least once!

How do I grate carrots?

I’ve found that the best way to grate carrots for carrot cake is to use the small shredding side of a box grater.

You can also use a food processor shredding disc, but I wouldn’t recommend it unless you needed a lot of carrots. Simply because you’ll wind up with more dishes and the food processor doesn’t shred them as finely as a box grater!

How to make this chai spiced carrot cake loaf

First, you’ll need to preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and line a loaf pan with some parchment paper.

Then, thoroughly wash your carrots and carefully grate them into a small bowl. Set the carrots to the side for now.

Grab a medium sized bowl and mix together the chai spice mix, baking powder, and flour.

Baking tip: I’ll typically take about 2 TBSP of the flour mixture and mix it in with the grated carrots. This helps the carrots distribute evenly throughout your loaf and I’d highly recommend doing it!

Now, grab a large bowl and whisk the eggs together. Add the sugars and vegetable oil to the eggs and mix well to incorporate. Add the dry ingredients to the bowl and with a rubber spatula, mix until just combined. Gently fold the carrots into the batter.

Pour the carrot cake batter into your prepared loaf pan and bake for 55 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean!

I’ll let my carrot cake loaf sit in the baking pan for about 15 minutes before transferring it to a wire rack to cool completely. Then, I add my cream cheese frosting and voilà! Your chai spiced carrot cake loaf is complete.

Optional add-ins

Sometimes, you’ll find carrot cake made with raisins or toasted nuts. I’m a fan of both – but I understand that not everyone loves these two ingredients in their cakes!

Feel free to add one or both of these ingredients to the mix before baking! You can even place toasted nuts on top of the cream cheese before serving.

Toasted coconut flakes are also an awesome addition to this carrot cake!