It has been a lovely sunny weekend and yesterday was my mother's annual family barbecue get-together. I wanted to contribute to the food as everyone was bringing something so I decided to make these delicious carrot cupcakes. I did want to make the little marzipan carrots to decorate the top but I couldn't find orange food colouring in any of the supermarkets (come on guys get it together!) Instead I just used these cute little multicoloured chocolate beans which all the kids loved so it turned out ok I guess. I'm pretty sure these tasted good as they were all gone in about 5 minutes so I must have done something right! The recipe is a different one to the one I usually use for making a full size carrot cake and uses grated apple as well as carrot so you get a really nice moist cake. With it being so warm yesterday I pre-made the cream cheese frosting and kept it in the fridge until they were needed otherwise I would've just ended up with a runny sloppy mess and nobody wants to eat that! I made a big batch of these and doubled up this recipe (which made about 32) but if you just want to try this recipe out this makes about 12-15.
Ingredients
(makes 12-15)
2 large carrots, grated
1 large apple, grated (skin on is fine)
175g self raising flour
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
Pinch of salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
50g chopped walnuts
125g white granulated sugar
2 eggs, beaten
160ml sunflower or vegetable oil
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
Zest of 1/2 orange
For the cream cheese frosting:
40g butter (at room temperature)
100g cream cheese (at room temperature)
250g+ icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
First of all pre-heat your oven to 180°C and put your cupcake cases into a baking tin.
Sift the flour into a large mixing bowl and mix in the bicarbonate of soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, sugar and chopped walnuts.
Make a well in the centre and add the beaten egg, oil and vanilla essence and mix until thoroughly combined. Add the orange zest, grated carrots and apple and fold into the mixture. It should be quite sloppy.
Divide the mixture into the cupcake cases (about 3/4 full) then bake for about 18-20 minutes depending on your oven - check earlier if they are looking too brown as all ovens are different. They are ready when a skewer comes out clean. Leave to cool completely on a cooling rack.
Don't try to add the frosting until the cakes are fully cooled as you will just end up with a runny mess - believe me! I find it is best to make the cream cheese frosting and leave it in the fridge for as long as you can - overnight if possible so it can set. It would be a good idea to make this first before you make the cakes so it can be setting whilst you are doing the rest. It is also important that you leave the butter and cream cheese out of the fridge for a while before you make this as they mix together much better at room temperature and you do no get little lumps of butter that has not mixed in properly which can happen if the butter is too cold.
So to make the vanilla cream cheese frosting you mix together the butter and cream cheese - I use an electric mixer as it is quite hard work by hand and if you mix on the top setting it makes the mixture nice and smooth. If you don't have one it is fine to do by hand - you just need to make sure there are no lumps in it. Now sift in the icing sugar and mix in. This bit is kind of a judgement call as I always find no matter what recipe you use for cream cheese frosting it is always too runny and I end up having to add loads more icing sugar than it says. So you just have to keep testing it and sifting in a bit more icing sugar at a time until you are happy with the consistency - it needs to be able to stay on top of the cakes and not run off. Finally stir in the vanilla essence then transfer to a container and leave in the fridge to set.
Use a butter knife to spread the frosting on top of the cupcakes and decorate with whatever you fancy. These will be the best carrot cupcakes you will ever eat!
