Who doesn’t love a good carrot cake? 🍰 Whenever we make our carrot cake, it vanishes in quick order! It seems that we usually make it for special occasions, like birthdays or holidays. But, we also love to make mini carrot cake cookies so we can enjoy those warm spicy flavors more often. 🥕🥕🥕 Made with all of the same carrot cake goodies like pineapple, nuts, raisins, shredded carrots and lots of warm spices, these are a big crowd pleaser! We use mascarpone frosting on these and it is soooooo creamy and delicious.
These taste exactly like carrot cake, with all of the same flavors, except these have oats and most carrot cakes do not. We also use mascarpone cheese in place of cream cheese for the frosting. Mascarpone is a bit sweeter than cream cheese, and therefore requires less sugar. Of course, you could use cream cheese if you prefer it. The mascarpone is super creamy, too, so it whips up into a frosting in no time.
You can make these cookies more on the cakey side or more on the chewy cookie side, by altering the amount of flour and oats. We love them both ways, but that really depends upon your favorite style of cookie. To make them more cakey, simply use 1/4 cup more flour and 1/4 cup less oats, and the reverse if you prefer them more chewy. We like to use instant oats in our cookies, because the old fashioned oats can be a little bit too dry. The flakier instant oats blend really well into the cookie dough. If you love that taste and texture of old fashioned oats, by all means use those instead.
Carrot Cake Cookies with Mascarpone Frosting
Equipment
- grater with a fine side for grating the carrots
- pastry bag with tips and couplers for making carrot frosting decorations
Ingredients
Carrot Cake Cookies
- 4 oz. butter, at room temperature
- 3/4 cup light brown sugar
- 1 large egg
- 1 tsp. vanilla
- 1 cup finely grated carrots Do this on a handheld grater instead of the food processor.
- 1/2 cup crushed pineapple
- 1/2 cup raisins, reconstituted in 1 cup boiling water for 15 minutes and then wrung dry
- 1/2 cup chopped pecans
- 3/4 cup instant oats
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp. baking soda
- 1 tsp. cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp. cardamom
- 1/2 tsp. allspice
- 1/2 tsp. salt
Mascarpone Frosting
- 8 oz. mascarpone
- 1 cup powdered sugar, sifted confectioners sugar
- 1 tsp. cream
- 1 tsp. vanilla extract
Instructions
Carrot Cake Cookies
- Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Preheat oven to 350° F.
- Place softened butter in the bowl of your mixer or a large mixing bowl. Beat until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes.
- Add brown sugar and beat until creamy. Add egg and beat well.
- Stir in all remaining ingredients and mix until thoroughly incorporated.
- Using a cookie scoop or a soup spoon, drop dough on to the prepared baking sheet.
- Bake for 10 minutes, and then using the back of a flat spatula, press down on the cookies to make them a little bit flatter. Continue to bake for 1-2 more minutes, or until done. Remove from oven and cool completely before frosting.
- Set aside about 1/3 to 1/2 cup of the frosting for making carrot decorations. Spread the remaining frosting evenly over the top of each cookie. Then dust some of the cookies with cinnamon or allspice, sprinkle some of them with chopped candied pecans and the rest decorate with a little frosting carrot on top. Or, you can just choose one of these topping ideas.
- To make the carrot decorations, dye some of the remaining frosting orange and some green. Then put the frosting into two separate pastry bags, fitted with a leaf tip or a round tip and couplers to make a cute little carrot on top.
- Store frosted cookies in a single layer in an airtight container in the refrigerator but remove to warm up about 10 minutes before serving.
Mascarpone Frosting
- Place mascarpone in the bowl of your mixer or in a mixing bowl. Beat until fluffy and smooth. Slowly add sifted powdered sugar and continue to beat until well-integrated. Add vanilla and 1 tsp. cream and beat one final time until fluffy.
These are ADORABLE!! We had carrot cake at our wedding, so it’s super nostalgic for us. So clever to make it into a cookie.
Carrot cake wedding cake is the BEST! Whoever created carrot cake deserves a gold medal! So happy you like these!