Caramel Carrot Cake Poke Cake

This Caramel Carrot Cake Poke Cake is so sweet and delicious, you’ll never want any other carrot cake again! Baked to perfection and saturated in sweetened condensed milk, then topped with fluffy frosting and drenched in caramel sauce.

If you want a more traditional recipe! Check out my Classic Carrot Cake made completely from scratch!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter or at least a great day with their families! I know most associate Carrot Cake with Easter, but I think it’s a great dessert that can be served all year round!

This particular Carrot Cake is a Poke Cake which means it’s had holes poked in it and then drenched in Sweetened Condensed Milk.

Then it’s topped with frosting and in this case Sea Salt Caramel Sauce and some chopped pecans.

I had never made or had a Poke Cake before this one and now I understand why they are so popular!

They’re incredibly moist and delicious and let’s just try to forget about the fact that they’re pretty much waistline suicide. Seriously, don’t even look at the calorie count.

But honestly, when something tastes this good, who cares if you have to buy new pants, amirite?

Summer is still a couple of months away anyway. But seriously, though, you’re going to love this cake!

This carrot cake recipe is made from an adapted cake box mix. However, you can definitely use your favorite from-scratch recipe and use the frosting and toppings and the end result will be very similar.

This carrot cake is anything but basic.

It’s topped with a delicious whipped frosting made with cheesecake pudding mix which stands in for traditional cream cheese frosting.

Then the salted caramel sauce is just over the top, once you top it with pecans, it’s game over (for your diets, that is).

I loved the way everything came together and the slight crunch of the pecans was great for the texture of the cake.

Everyone loves this cake and always has seconds!

How To Make It:

Begin with a cake mix, it can be your favorite brand, I like Duncan Hines. You can also make your favorite from scratch carrot cake instead.

Mix all of the cake ingredients EXCEPT for the sweetened condensed milk together in a large bowl with a hand mixer or stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment. Pour the batter into a prepared 9×13-inch baking pan and bake.

Once baked, poke holes all over the cake and then pour the sweetened condensed milk all over the top of the cake.

You can do this while the cake is hot or cold, but let it soak in and cool completely before frosting.

Prepared the frosting and frost the cake.

Pour the caramel sauce over the top of the cake. I like to do this right before serving if possible.

Sprinkle chopped pecans all over the top of the cake. Slice and enjoy!

More Delicious Poke Cake Recipes:

• Banana Split Poke Cake
• Irish Cream Poke Cake
• Kahlua Poke Cake
• Grasshopper Poke Cake
• Cinnamon Roll Poke Cake
• Peach Poke Cake

Let’s Connect!

If you’ve tried this recipe, please let me know how you liked it in the comments below and leave a review; I love hearing from you! And don’t forget to tag me – @sugarandsoulco – on Instagram and Pinterest with your photos or join our Sugar & Soul Show-offs Community and share them there, where you can join our recipe challenges and win prizes!

This post was originally published in April 2014 and was updated in March 2019 with new photos, video, and recipe clarifications.