

My favourite cake of all time, even beyond chocolate and caramel, is carrot cake. I made and blogged about the carrot cake cookies I made a while back and today I returned to this great classic in the form of cupcakes. These don’t just have carrot, they have grated apple and raisins as well.

I remember many years ago when I was on Weight Watchers (after a particularly long renovation without a kitchen and many takeaway meals later) that they told me a piece of carrot cake equates to a full day’s calories when on a weight-loss diet.. By the way, also a McDonald’s Big Mac is a day’s calories. Just in case you wanted to know. Anyway, I have never been able to look at carrot cake quite the same again. And I never touched any McDonald’s food again, Big Mac or otherwise.

But, carrot cake does have carrots and therefore can’t be all bad, surely. And if you add apple and raisins then maybe that balances out the calories. Or perhaps not.

You could look at it this way. Either you can have breakfast, lunch and dinner in the usual way or you could have a piece of carrot cake. How hard would that be? Super hard because I have already eaten two of these today alone and Adriano is cooking a great goat curry for dinner. So, tomorrow I just don’t eat at all, right?

I found this recipe here.

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Carrot Cupcakes

2 cups (260 grams) all-purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

4 large eggs

1 cup (200 grams) granulated white sugar

1 cup (240 ml) safflower, corn, or canola oil

2 cups (210 grams) finely grated raw carrots

1 cup grated apple (approximately 2 large)

1/2 cup (55 grams) pecans or walnuts, coarsely chopped

1 cup (100 grams) raisins or currants

Cream Cheese Frosting:

1/2 cup (113 grams) unsalted butter, room temperature

8 ounces (227 grams) cream cheese, room temperature

3 cups (330 grams) confectioners’ (powdered or icing) sugar, sifted

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Carrot Cupcakes: Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (180 degrees C) and place rack in center of oven. Place paper liners in separate bowl whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, and ground cinnamon.

In another large bowl whisk the eggs, sugar, and oil until slightly thickened. Fold in the flour mixture until incorporated. With a large rubber spatula fold in the grated carrots, grated apple, chopped nuts, and raisins. Evenly divide the batter between the 20 muffin cups and bake about 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of a cupcake comes out clean.

Remove from the oven and let cool completely on a wire rack. Pipe or with a knife or small metal spatula spread the cream cheese frosting on top of each cupcake. Cover and refrigerate the cupcakes until serving time.

Frosting: In the bowl of your electric, or with a hand mixer, beat the butter and cream cheese until very smooth and creamy. Gradually beat in the powdered sugar until fully incorporated and smooth. Beat in the vanilla extract.

Makes 20 cupcakes.

20 muffin cups.

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