Carrot Cake Whoopie Pies are soft, cake-like cookies filled with shredded carrots, pecans, and warm spices like cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg. Filled with cream cheese frosting and perfect for Easter as well as fall!
These carrot cake whoopie pies are perfect for spring. They are soft, cakey, and filled with shredded carrots and pecans. They’re also fantastic in the fall, with warm spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger.
If you’ve never had a whoopie pie before, these sandwich cookies are very soft and cake-like. Two cake cookies are filled with a creamy frosting and sandwiched together.
I filled these carrot cake cookies with a cream cheese frosting, but my Whipped Buttercream Frosting is another fan-favorite for filling whoopie pies!
Ingredients
For this recipe, you’ll need room temperature butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar, room temperature eggs, vanilla extract, all-purpose flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, chopped pecans, and shredded carrots.
To grate my carrots, I used the smaller side of a simple box grater. I recommend peeling your carrots, then grating into a bowl, measuring as you go until you have as much as you need for the recipe.
Pecans can be swapped with walnuts, toasted shredded coconut, or white chocolate chips.
Mixing your dough
First, you’ll mix together your wet ingredients, then add your dry ingredients, mixing until just incorporated. Last, you will add your shredded carrots and pecans, stirring to incorporate them into your dough. Make sure the carrots are evenly dispersed throughout your dough.
I like to use a medium OXO cookie scoop to measure my dough out into perfectly sized cookies. This is especially important for whoopie pies, since you’ll be pairing your cookies together to make sandwiches.
Filling your whoopie pies
Once your cookies have baked and cooled completely on cooling racks, they are ready to be filled and served.
I’ve included a recipe below for a cream cheese frosting that is perfect for filling these carrot cake whoopie pies. This cream cheese frosting is very creamy, rich, and velvety. It is also very soft, and not ideal for piping onto cupcakes.
If you are interested in a thicker frosting, I’d suggest adding up to 1 cup more of confectioner’s sugar to this recipe, or trying my American Buttercream Frosting recipe.
Another favorite is my Whipped Buttercream Frosting recipe, which also fills my classic Whoopie Pies recipe. Any of these would be a great choice. If you use either of the buttercream frosting recipes not listed on this page, keep in mind you’ll need to halve the ingredients for filling these cookies – you don’t need nearly as much as you would for frosting cupcakes!
More cookie recipes
More cookie recipes- Whoopie Pies
- Snickerdoodle Cookies
- Chai Spiced Oatmeal Cookies
- Soft Molasses Cookies
- Maple Glazed Cut Out Cookies
Carrot Cake Whoopie Pies
Ingredients
Carrot Cake Cookies
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter room temperature
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 large eggs room temperature
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon ground ginger
- 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
- 1 1/2 cups grated carrots
- 1/2 cup chopped pecans or walnuts
Cream Cheese Buttercream Frosting
- 2.5 ounces cream cheese from a block, room temperature
- 4 ounces unsalted butter room temperature
- 2 cups confectioner's sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 tablespoons heavy cream optional
Instructions
Carrot Cake Cookies
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Set aside.
- In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugars. Add eggs and vanilla extract. Beat for a full 3 minutes, mixture will look fluffy.
- In a separate bowl, sift together the dry ingredients flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg.
- Gradually stir dry ingredients into butter mixture until just combined. Add grated carrots and pecans to dough and stir until evenly incorporated
- ing a medium cookie scoop (or a heaping tablespoon), spoon cookie dough 2 inches apart onto prepared baking sheet. Recipe should make 30 individual cookies total.
- Bake for 9-10 minutes, or until lightly browned around edges. Allow to cool for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.
Cream Cheese Buttercream Frosting
- In a large bowl, cream together the cream cheese and butter until combined. Add vanilla and half off the powdered sugar, mixing slowly to combine. Add remaining powdered sugar and mix slowly to combine. Once incorporated, beat on high speed for 2 to 3 minutes, until light and fluffy.
- Optionally, add heavy cream one tablespoon at a time until desired consistency is achieved.
- Pipe or spread frosting onto half of the cookies, then top with remaining cookies to make sandwiches.
Equipment Recommendations
Notes
- Your cookies will keep for 3-4 days in a sealed container. To help keep cookies fresh, you can place a slice of bread in the container with the cookies. Replace the bread slice as needed.
- Cream cheese frosting can be substituted with a Whipped Buttercream Frosting instead.
- Block cream cheese must be used to make your frosting. Cream cheese in a tub, or whipped cream cheese, will result in a runny frosting.
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