Carrot Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting
Serves: 12 cupcakes
Light and moist Carrot Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting. Easy to make and delicious topped with marzipan carrots. Great for birthday parties!
Ingredients
For the Carrot Cupcakes
- 100 g (½ cup plus 2 tablespoons) light muscovado sugar, or light brown sugar
- 175 ml (½ cup plus 3 tablespoons) vegetable oil
- 2 eggs
- 225 g (1 ½ cup) plain flour, (all-purpose flour)
- ¾ teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 pinch fine salt
- 1 lemon or small orange, zested
- 150 g (5 ½ oz) carrots, coarsely grated
- 100 g (3 ½ oz) walnuts, chopped (optional)
For the Cream-Cheese Frosting
- 125 g (4 ½ oz) cream cheese, softened
- 250 g (2 cups) icing sugar, (powdered sugar)
- 1-2 teaspoons lemon or orange juice
- marzipan carrots, or walnuts halves for decoration
Instructions
For the Carrot Cupcakes
- Preheat the oven to 200°C (390°F) (without fan).
- Line a muffin pan with 12 muffin cases.
- Beat together the sugar and oil.
- Add the eggs and continue beating until you have a smooth mixture.
- Add the flour, baking soda, ground cinnamon, salt and zest.
- Mix gently until everything is well combined.
- Stir through the carrots and walnuts.
- Spoon the mixture into the muffin cases and bake for 15-20 minutes, or until a skewer inserted in the middle of a cupcake comes out clean.
- Leave the cupcakes on a wire rack to cool completely.
For the Cream-Cheese Frosting
- Beat the cream cheese until it is smooth.
- Add the icing sugar (powdered sugar), tablespoon by tablespoon, until you have the desired sweetness. You may not need all of the icing sugar.
- Add the lemon or orange juice to taste, though be mindful that it will thin the frosting a little.
- Spread some cream-cheese frosting on the top of each cupcake.
- Decorate with a marzipan carrot or a walnut half.
Kitchen Notes
- RECIPE CREDIT
This recipe is adapted from How to be a Domestic Goddess by Nigella Lawson. - OVEN TEMPERATURES
All recipes on this website state temperatures for a regular oven (i.e. a conventional oven without fan). If you have a convection oven with a fan, please consult the manufacturer's handbook on how to adjust the temperature and baking time accordingly. - CONVERSIONS
To convert from cups to grams, and vice-versa, please see this handy Conversion Chart for Basic Ingredients.