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These are the moistest, most delicious Carrot Cake Cupcakes that I have ever had! They have a little crunch from toasted walnuts and the perfect hint of cinnamon! Topped with an impossibly creamy cream cheese frosting they are irresistible!
This is the most tender, moist carrot cake you’ve ever had with a little crunch from the toasted walnuts and a prominent carrot cinnamon flavor.
The cake is the same as The Best Carrot Cake Recipe but transformed into cupcakes! I topped them with a traditional cream cheese frosting but you could also use this bourbon cream cheese buttercream from the best red velvet cake.
And adorned with a little marzipan carrot. As can be seen, they are adorable. Plus who doesn’t love marzipan?
So truth be told, this isn’t my first time around the carrot cake block…
This carrot cake recipe is actually shockingly similar in texture and taste to one I made last year from one of my vintage cookbooks. It tasted divine and the frosting was to.die.for. Why didn’t I post it?
Because as I cut into my magnificent 3-tiered cake, I realized my carrots had turned green.
GREEN!!!!
Apparently if carrots come in contact with baking soda, they will transform like a Teenage Mutant Nina Turtle into a horrible, sickening shade of green.
In essence, think shamrock.
If you’re really nice to me, I may just post a picture of the green cake in all its glory. Maybe.
In culinary school we weigh all our ingredients, because it is 1000x more accurate and at least 234x easier. I converted this recipe to volumetric measurements because I love you, but I suggest you dust off that scale in the back of your cupboard and weigh your ingredients.
When someone gives you weighted measurements it’s like a gift from the Goddess of Precision herself, and you don’t turn down gifts. Or at least I don’t! 😉
If you aren’t into kneading gel coloring into marzipan and meticulously shaping carrots (even though it is so easy!), you can do like my friend David and pipe adorable little carrots on top with frosting.
Carrot Cake Cupcakes
Ingredients
For the Carrot Cake:
- 1½ cups all purpose flour
- ¾ teaspoon baking soda
- ¾ teaspoon baking powder
- 1 ½ teaspoons cinnamon
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice
- 1 ¼ cup vegetable oil
- 1 ⅔ cups granulated sugar
- 3 eggs
- 1 cup carrots shredded and squeezed
- ½ cup walnuts toasted and chopped
For the Cream Cheese Frosting:
- 20 oz cream cheese not light, not whipped, room temperature
- ½ cup unsalted butter 2 sticks, room temperature
- 2 cups powdered sugar
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- toasted walnuts chopped, for garnish, optional
For the Marzipan Carrots (optional):
- 3 ½ tablespoons marzipan
- food coloring orange and green
Instructions
For the Carrot Cake:
- Preheat the oven to 350˚F and line 24 muffin tins with cupcake liners.
- Sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon and salt in a medium bowl and set aside.
- Add the lemon juice to the vegetable oil and set aside.
- Squeeze out the excess juice from your carrot; discard or drink it! So healthy!
- In a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, whip together the eggs and sugar to the ribbon stage. This is when the batter will hold a ribbon on its surface before slowly disappearing.
- With the mixer running on high, slowly pour in the vegetable oil mixture and whisk until completely emulsified (i.e. you can’t see any oil).
- Remove the bowl from the stand mixer and fold in the dry ingredients all at once just until streaky.
- Fold in the walnuts and carrots until there are no more lumps of flour and the batter is just combined. Please don’t over mix. If you think it’s done, it is.
- Scoop into prepared tins no higher than ¾ full. You will have just enough batter to fill 24 cups.
- Bake 18-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes back clean.
- Cool 5 minutes in pan then turn out onto wire rack and cool upside-down. Yes, upside-down! Let cool completely before frosting.
For the Cream Cheese Frosting:
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment cream together the cream cheese, butter and powdered sugar on medium low speed until soft and smooth, 10-12 minutes. It is very important your ingredients are at room temperature or you will have lumps of butter and you will have to soften over a water bath and your frosting will be runnier (Like mine. Don’t let impatience happen to you.)
- Add the lemon juice and vanilla and stir to combine.
- Pipe frosting onto cupcakes using your favorite tip. I used a Wilton 1A.
- Gently scoop some toasted, chopped walnuts into the palm of one hand and pat them around the edges of each cupcake.
For the Marzipan Carrots:
- Color ¾ of the marzipan orange and ¼ green, by kneading in gel coloring into the marzipan.
- Shape little carrots from the orange marzipan and mark them with the back of a knife to resemble the lines on real carrots. Make a divot in the top of each carrot.
- Roll out the green marzipan into long, thin ropes and cut into small pieces. Group several pieces together and press into the divot in each carrot.
- Top each cupcake with a small carrot. Adorable.
Hi I just made these and they came out really great!! I didn’t have powdered sugar (sucrose) but did have powdered dextrose which is just a tad less sweet but still powdered so the texture is perfect. Awesome recipe, thanks!@!Q!
Great tip!!! I am so glad you liked them! And I think less sweetness in frosting is always welcome
Hi there,
Beautiful cupcakes! Thank you for sharing..I just made these for Easter and I am a bit bummed because I followed your recipe to the T, but after baking, my cupcakes aren’t orangey/brown they are golden…is there an ingredient missing in the recipe? Brown sugar or something? Anyway I’m sure they will taste fantastic! Thank you!
Hi Tonya, There isn’t an ingredient missing in the recipe. The only orange bits of the cupcakes are the actual carrots. Mine were a golden brown inside as well. Do keep in mind that I do edit my photos and that can darken the colors a bit. I hope the flavor was a hit! Happy baking!