Carrot Cake Poke Cake is a light and creamy dessert sure to please the family! Serve this easy poke cake whenever you’re craving carrot cake filled with a luscious creamy cheesecake pudding and topped with whipped cream! This is a popular recipe when Easter rolls around!
What is a Poke Cake? A poke cake is one of the best luscious cakes that you can ever make. The reason it is called a poke cake is because you poke holes into the finished cake to add in your filling of choice, using the end of a wooden spoon to poke holes randomly through the cake about an inch apart.
Which means, you can mix and match any cake mix with any flavor of pudding, and top it with whipped cream or your favorite frosting, plus add extra toppings, like caramel sauce and pecans like we did with this carrot cake poke cake!
What is Carrot Cake Poke Cake with Cheesecake Pudding?
Our Carrot Cake Poke Cake starts out with using a boxed carrot cake mix (I used Duncan Hines) for a quick and easy shortcut. It’s a really good cake mix and after the cake is baked, the carrots in the cake aren’t hard and chewy! We also took instant cheesecake pudding and made pudding and filled the poked holes with the cheesecake pudding and then we layered fluffy whipped cream on top!
When you’re ready to serve, just add some crunchy pecans or walnuts and drizzle some caramel sauce on top, to make it extra amazing!
Super easy and dreamy! The hardest part is waiting on the cake to chill in the refrigerator for 3–4 hours or overnight.
INGREDIENTS
For Carrot Cake:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 ¾ teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 ¼ teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground ginger
¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
1 cup vegetable oil
½ cup sugar
1 ¼ cup light brown sugar
4 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 cups freshly grated carrots
1 cup chopped pecans
For filling:
6.8 oz. box white chocolate instant pudding mix
4 cups milk
For Cream Cheese Frosting:
6 oz. cream cheese- softened
1/3 cup unsalted butter-softened
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups powdered sugar
Salt, to taste
INSTRUCTIONS
For the carrot cake:
Step 1: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and grease the glass dish. Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and cloves in a medium bowl and set it aside.
Step 2: Add oil, eggs, vanilla, sugar and brown sugar in a bowl, mix together until it is combined. Then add flour mixture to it and mix properly till it is homogenous.
Step 3: Fold the grated carrots and pecans and spread the cake batter into the greased dish. Leave it to bake for about 40-50 minutes, or until the toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
Step 4: Let the cake cool for about 10 minutes and poke holes less than 1 inch apart all over the cake using a wooden spoon. Then whisk the instant pudding mix and 4 cups of milk together until there are no lumps.
Step 5: Pour the pudding over the cake and into the holes, then smoothen the top of the cake and place in the fridge until the cake is cooled completely.
For the frosting:
Step 6: Beat the butter, cream cheese, vanilla and dash of salt well until it is smooth and creamy. Add powdered sugar gradually into the mixture, beat on high speed for about 2-3 minutes.
Step 7: Spread the frosting on the cooled cake and put back in the fridge for 30-45 minutes before serving. You can store for up to 5 days.