Carrot Cake Cupcakes

I have always really liked carrot cake but if I’m being completely honest for me the best part about a carrot cake is the icing! I have been known to lick off the cream cheese frosting and leaving the cake 😛 Its not that I didn’t like the flavour of the cake I just really like frosting.

 

Its been a while since I’ve had a good carrot cake and thinking back I’m not 100% sure if I’ve ever made one before. That had to change! My mum hosted an afternoon tea over the weekend and I thought it would be a perfect opportunity to make some carrot cake cupcakes.

Over the past few months I have been slowly teaching myself how to work with fondant, just simple things like making stars and love hearts using a fondant cutter. I thought it was time to experiment a little bit more, it was time to go free hand. I wanted to make mini carrots to put on top of the cupcakes. I must admit I was super happy with how the turned out. I was not super happy with how long they took to make lol. Colouring the fondant and then shaping the carrots and the greenery took a lot long than what I thought. But on a positive note, towards the end I was getting faster at making them. So I think the moral of this story is to keep practising and working with fondant.

 

Mini Carrot Cakes

Ingredients

 

Cupcakes

250ml Vegetable 0il

3 Eggs (room temp)

1tsp Vanilla extract

215g Caster sugar

190g (approx 2 cups) grated carrots

150g Self-raising flour

125g Almond meal

1tsp Ground cinnamon

Half a cup of walnuts (roughly chopped)

 

Icing

230g Icing sugar

250g Cream cheese (room temperature)

(I like a lot of icing to pipe, so doubled these ingredients)

Method

Pre-heat your oven to 170C (fan forced) line your cupcake tray with paper cases

In a large bowl whisk together the eggs, vanilla extract and oil, then add caster sugar, mix until well combined.

Stir in the flour (sifted) carrot, almond meal, walnuts and cinnamon, mix well until all ingredients are combined.

Spoon the mixture in your paper cases, fill approximately 3/4 full to allow space for the mixture to rise. I got 18 cupcakes from my mixture

Bake for 18-20mins. If your oven has hot and cold spots like mine, you will need to turn your trays half way through to ensure an even bake. You will know if your cupcakes are cooked if a skewer comes out clean or if they spring back when you press them slightly.

 

Icing

Using an electric mixer – I used my fabulous Kitchen Aid stand mixer – beat cream cheese and icing sugar (sifted) until smooth and creamy. Be sure to start your mixer on low first otherwise you will end up with icing sugar all over yourself and your kitchen bench. The recipe I was using added lemon to their cream cheese, I have made a lemon cream cheese frosting before and its really yummy. I wanted to keep the frosting for the cupcakes simple, but you can add some lemon juice to yours

Recipe adapted from Mini Carrot Cakes from Carrot Cupcakes with Lemon Frosting

 

You’ll probably notice from the photos the carrots look like they are starting to melt! It was 38C here today (so much for Autumn) and I was set up next to the window to get the natural light. I can’t wait for the cooler weather to arrive!

 

Happy Baking 🙂