• Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and prepare two 9-inch round cake pans by greasing them well and lining the bottom with a circular piece of parchment paper. It's also a good idea to grease on top of the parchment paper and flour the cake pans as well.
• Add the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and salt to a large bowl and whisk them together until combined.
• Add the shredded carrots to the dry ingredients and whisk them in until they're evenly distributed throughout the dry ingredients.
• To a separate bowl, add the eggs, canola oil and buttermilk and whisk them together well.
• Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and combine them with a rubber spatula just until no streaks of flour remain.
• Divide the batter evenly between the 2 prepared cake pans and bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for about 35-40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the middle of one of the cake layers comes out clean.
• Remove the cakes from their pans and cool them upside down on cooling racks until they cool completely.

For the frosting:

• Add the room temperature cream cheese to the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Whip the cream cheese on medium high speed until it's creamy and smooth.
• Add the softened butter and the vanilla extract to the cream cheese and continue to whip on medium speed until they're well combined (you might need to scrape down the sides of the bowl at this point).
• Add the powdered sugar one cup at a time, mixing on medium-low speed until it's completely blended and thick. If at this point the frosting is too thick to spread, beat in a tablespoon or two of milk to loosen it up a little bit (add the milk a couple teaspoons at a time just to be sure you don't add too much!).
• Once the frosting has reached the right consistency and the cake has cooled completely, frost the cake with a knife or an offset spatula, making sure there's a generous layer of frosting between the layers before frosting the sides and the top.