Yowzers! It’s sure been tough to find the time to write lately. Busy summer days with very busy little boys!
I’ve got an ever-growing backlog of recipes hanging out in the queue. They’ve all been taste-tested and photographed. Ingredients, quantities, and procedures have been drafted. Now if only I could find a moment to form a few semi-coherent thoughts to complete the posts. Coherent thoughts are hard to come by these days.
But, busy is good. Busy means happy, healthy, curious kids. Busy makes me tired, but busy is definitely good!
Hanging out alongside a tasty recipe for corn and bacon fritters and two separate grilled shrimp recipes were these cookies…carrot cake cookies. They’re sort of a cross between a chewy oatmeal raisin cookie and a slice of moist, delicious carrot cake. And they’re good! I made the first batch as a thank you gift for the midwives I saw throughout my pregnancy and a second batch for my son’s nursery school teachers. Who doesn’t love to receive homemade cookies as a gift?? And somewhere in between those two batches, I ate at least a dozen of these tender, sweet and spicy cookies myself. Mhmm…they’re yummy indeed!
Carrot Cake Cookies
Ingredients
- 2 cups flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 2 teaspoons cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon ginger
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 2 sticks salted butter, softened
- 1 cup light brown sugar, firmly packed
- 1/2 cup white sugar
- 2 eggs
- 2 teaspoons vanilla
- 1 1/2 cups Quaker oats
- 1 1/2 cups carrots, finely grated
- 1 1/4 cup golden raisins
- Confectioner’s sugar and water, for icing (optional)
Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a bowl, combine flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. Set aside. In another large bowl, beat the butter and sugar together until creamy. Add the vanilla and eggs to the butter mixture. Blend until well combined. Gradually add the flour mixture to the bowl and blend. Stir in the oats, carrots, and raisins. Drop rounded spoonfuls onto a cookie sheet which has been lightly greased with cooking spray. Bake for 12-14 minutes on the middle rack. Allow to cool for 10 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.
For the icing (optional): Combine about a cup of confectioner’s sugar with a few spoonfuls of water to form an icing. Add the water slowly. It won’t need much. The icing should be thin enough to drizzle, but thick enough to maintain it’s shape. You can add more sugar or water, as necessary, to achieve the desired consistency. Use a spoon to drizzle the icing over the cookies. Allow the icing to harden at room temperature.
The Gourmand Mom 
Do you have a Trader Joe’s near you? They have these cookies called something like “inside out carrot cake” It’s like a carrot-cake oreo/sandwich cookie. I bet if I took two of your cookies and a batch of cream cheese frosting for the middle, it would turnout similar. Mmmmmm… might have to bake tonight and I don’t even like baking.
Anyway thanks for your blog. I’ve tried a few of your recipes and get regular updates to your site. Good stuff!!
Oh, one question, what is the difference (baking wise) between using salted or unsalted butter? I only ever buy unsalted, will this mess up the recipe? Can I add a bit of salt to make up for it or would that change it too? I’m really not a good baker and tend to mess up even the most basic of recipes. (I can’t make cupcakes from a box. Pathetic!) But I really want to try these and get it right!
Those inside-out carrot cake cookies sound great!! I have an easy cream cheese frosting recipe included in this post: https://thegourmandmom.com/2011/04/26/coconut-layer-cake/ I bet that would work for your filling! Let me know how they turn out!
As far as the butter, you can definitely use your unsalted butter and it they’ll still turn out great! Actually, most baking recipes call for unsalted butter. I personally prefer when baked goods, especially oatmeal and chocolate chip cookies, have a bit of a salty, buttery flavor, so I always use salted butter, but that’s just my personal preference. If you also like a touch of saltiness, you could add a pinch more salt, but it would be fine to just use unsalted butter without adding any additional salt.
Let me know how they turn out! Enjoy!
Finally got around to making these. They turned out so similar to TJ’s that I could hardly tell the difference. WONDERFUL! This is saying a lot given my lack of baking skills. Must be a great recipe for them to turn out so good. THANKS!
That looks yummy and thanks for sharing a great recipe.
What kind of flour are you recommending for these? Cake flour, plain, self-rising or all purpose?
Regular, all-purpose flour works well. Enjoy!
YUM!!! I love carrot cake and in a cookie form? Yes please!
Thank you so much. These will be on the menu!!!
These are definitely on my must try out list. Hearty and delicious.
YUM! These are in my oven right now. I reduced the raisins and added some walnuts too. 🙂 Thanks, Amy.
Yum! Good call on the walnuts! Let me know how they come out!
They were great! They were a hit at the gathering we went to last night. A friend wants me to send her your link. 🙂
The carrot cake looks so cool
It’s been awhile since his was posted, but I came across it looking for a recipe for a holiday cookie swap party! Any idea about how many cookies you get out of a batch?