(Healthier) Carrot Cake Cupcakes
- by Liz
Omigoodness I love these. I was trying to come up with a way to fancy-up carrot cake cupcakes, which turned out to be much harder than I expected. You can’t really use sprinkles or chocolate shavings or anything like that, and putting actual carrots on top would be completely awful.
But then I was inspired by my little sister, the other writer on this here blog. She was piping melted white chocolate onto tarts and used the leftovers to draw letters and hearts on wax paper, then let them set in the fridge. I did the same thing, only I added gel food colouring to make orange and green, and formed carrots. Voila! Super easy and super adorable.
This recipe is adapted from The Looneyspoons Collection, which we highly recommend, especially if you are interested in healthier eating. These cupcakes are full of nutritional goodness and they’re way lighter than normal carrot cake (which is typically doused in oil).
| (Healthier) Carrot Cake Cupcakes |
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- CAKE:
- 1 + 3/4 c flour
- 1/4 c ground flaxseed
- 1 tbsp cinnamon
- 2 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp each nutmeg and ground ginger
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 c canned pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie filling)
- 1 c brown sugar (not packed)
- 3/4 c buttermilk
- 1/4 c vegetable oil
- 3 eggs
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 2 c grated carrots
- 1/2 c chopped walnuts
- 1/2 c sweetened shredded coconut
- ICING:
- 2 pkgs light cream cheese, at room temperature
- 1/3 c butter or margarine, at room temperature
- 2 c icing sugar
- 1 tbsp milk (if needed)
- CARROTS:
- 2/3 c white chocolate melting wafers
- Green and orange gel food colouring
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and line 2 cupcake tins with liners, or spray with cooking spray.
- In a medium bowl, combine flour, flaxseed, cinnamon, baking soda, baking powder, nutmeg, ginger and salt.
- In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat pumpkin, brown sugar, buttermilk, oil, eggs and vanilla on low speed until just blended.
- Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and gently mix by hand until just combined. Fold in carrots, walnuts and coconut.
- Fill each cupcake liner about 2/3 full. Bake for 18 to 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the centre of a cupcake comes out clean.
- To make the icing, beat together cream cheese and butter, then gradually beat in icing sugar. If icing is too thick, thin with a bit of milk.
- When completely cooled, ice as desired (I used a 1M icing tip).
- To make chocolate carrots, line a baking sheet with wax paper. Melt 1/3 cup of white chocolate in the microwave, and mix in one drop of orange food colouring. Spoon chocolate into a piping bag fitted with a very small tip, or into a plastic ziploc bag and cut off one tiny corner. Pipe carrot shape outlines and fill them in. When done, use a toothpick to smooth out the surface. Repeat with remaining 1/3 cup of chocolate and green food colouring to make the leaves. Place the baking sheet in the fridge for at least 10 minutes. When solid, carefully remove carrots from wax paper and place on cupcakes.
This recipe is adapted from The Looneyspoons Collection.
This recipe makes 2 9-in round cakes.
If removed from their wrappers before completely cooled, the cupcakes may stick to the wrappers a bit.