Carrot Cake Cookies

Chunky spiced cookies with carrot and pecan, plus a white chocolate drizzle. A no chill cookie recipe that's easy and delicious!

Course Dessert

Cuisine British

Keyword Cookies

Prep Time 30

Cook Time 14

Total Time 44

Servings

Calories 347kcal

Author thebakingexplorer

Ingredients

For the cookies

125 g Butter softened, unsalted
200 g Light brown soft sugar
1 Orange zest only
1 Egg large
1 tsp Vanilla extract
85 g Carrot grated
125 g Plain flour
125 g Wholemeal plain flour or regular plain/all purpose flour
½ tsp Baking powder
¼ tsp Bicarbonate of soda
¼ tsp Salt
1 ½ tsp Cinnamon
1 tsp Mixed spice
¼ tsp Nutmeg
150 g Pecans chopped finely

For decoration (optional)

75 g White chocolate
12 Fondant carrots

Metric - US Customary

Instructions

Pre-heat your oven to 180C Fan/400F/Gas Mark 6, and line a few baking trays (or however many you own) with baking paper
Ideally using a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, mix the butter and light brown soft sugar together until fluffy and paler in colour. This will take 3-5 minutes in an electric mixer (I use speed 3)
Add the orange zest, egg and vanilla extract, and mix them in
Add the grated carrot, plain flour, wholemeal plain flour, cinnamon, mixed spice, nutmeg, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt (you can mix everything except the grated carrot together in a separate bowl first if you like) and mix them in until just combined
Add the pecans and mix briefly, just to evenly distribute them
Divide the dough into portions, I weighed the dough out to make each cookie an equal size (they were roughly 73g each)
Roll the dough portions into balls using your hands, place the dough balls onto the lined baking trays, leaving space (at least 2") between them to spread. If you don't have enough baking trays, bake the cookies in batches
Bake for 12-14 minutes, remove from the oven and leave the cookies to cool for at least 10 minutes on the baking trays before moving to a cooling rack
Once the cookies are fully cool drizzle the white chocolate over them, then add the fondant carrots. I like to put the melted white chocolate into a small piping bag to control the drizzle, or you can use a spoon
Leave the chocolate to set before tucking in
Store in an airtight container and eat within 3 days. They also be frozen

Video

Notes

Make sure all your ingredients (particularly the butter and eggs) are at room temperature before you start baking.
I prefer to use unsalted butter for this recipe, but you can also use a baking spread.
I highly recommend using light brown soft sugar for these cookies, not only for delicious flavour but they give the cookies their gorgeous golden colour. You could use caster sugar, or a mix of dark brown soft sugar and caster sugar, but the colour of the cookies will differ.
I used a mix of regular plain flour and wholemeal plain flour for these cookies. You can do all regular plain flour if you prefer.
Mixed spice is a British spice blend containing cinnamon, coriander seed, nutmeg, clove, pimento, and ground ginger. If you can't get hold of it where you're based, you can use a Pumpkin Spice mix instead or add a mix of other spices - I recommend cinnamon and nutmeg.
If you don't like pecans you can omit them. Or swap them for walnuts.
Although I provide cup measurements, I highly recommend weighing your ingredients out using digital kitchen scales. It is the most accurate way to measure ingredients and will ensure the best results. Digital scales are very low cost and can be purchased for around £12 ($16.50) .
For teaspoon (tsp) and tablespoon (tbsp) measurements, please use measuring spoons and not the type of spoons you eat with. Again this will ensure accuracy and provide the best results.

Nutrition