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!
If you’ve been following along my culinary school journey on The Gram, you probably recall the three pictures I posted of a carrot cake that look strikingly similar to these little cupcakes.
This is it! Indeed this is the very first recipe that I’m sharing from culinary school. #nobigdeal
Furthermore, my husband, a HUGE fan of carrot cake, proclaimed that this was the best carrot cake that he’s ever had!
But you know I had to turn the cake into cupcakes. Because…
{Are you new around here?!}
CUPCAKES!!!
You know I live for some cupcakes!
It is the moistest, most tender cake you’ve ever had with a little crunch from the toasted walnuts and a prominent carrot cinnamon flavor.
The cake is tender and so moist it practically dissolves in your mouth and is topped with a traditional tangy sweet cream cheese frosting.
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. #toocuteforwords
Carrot Cake Cupcakes
Equipment
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!
I spooned/leveled a second time and weighed my results and it was 250 this time. I feel like that is more accurate for ap flour.
I measured out 190g of ap flour and it looked like there was too little to make 2 cups. So I used the spoon/level method and measured what I got and it came to 270g. Do you think there's that much of a weight difference between ap flour and pastry flour??
Hi Heather! You have just demonstrated the problem with volume measurements! As a quick reference, I use King Aurther's Flour's conversion charts. They have 240g for 2 cups, and, yes, 40g is a conceivable difference in weight between pastry and AP. I hope you enjoyed the cupcakes!
I remember seeing you on Behgopa's blog so when your recipe showed up in my search, I had to try your version! And wow, this cupcake is soooo fluffy and moist and not too sweet!
Behgopa and I are old blogging friends! She is one of the first blogs I followed. 🙂 I'm so glad you liked it!!!
I made this today for an early Easter celebration, I cut the recipe in half (which you indicated can be done) and it was a complete fail. The cupcakes sank I've never in all my years of cooking or baking had something turn out so horrible. I'm thinking this is a recipe that really can't be cut in half or maybe it's a hit or miss. Either way all 12 cupcakes went in the trash and I was out a dessert. Everyone had a laugh at my Pintress fail.
Well I'm sorry you had that experience, Jennifer. I know it works in half because that is how I made these cupcakes...I don't need 24 cupcakes hanging around! This is a trickier cake recipe than others because of the egg-foam, so challenge your friends to try it instead of laughing! The only suggestion I can offer without knowing exactly what happened is that you need to be super gentle with the batter. It is partially leavened by whipped eggs and so you need to preserve as many of those bubbles as possible.
I just made my second batch of these cupcakes....both times they sank tremendously. What am i doing wrong? I'm a pretty good baker...but these are not looking pretty. They taste amazing though! Thanks
Hi Tammy, If they sank then they were underbaked. This cake is harder to tell than most when it is done. Make sure you use a cake tester and err on the side of baking it a little longer. Happy baking!
Do you need to store these in the refrigerator?
I would, Amy. Happy Baking!
I made these for Easter and they were a huge hit. Thanks for the great recipe! They are not overly sweet and the frosting is divine. I did everything as directed except I added an additional 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon and I got lots of compliments on the cinnamon flavor. I also elected to just sprinkle walnuts over the top vs. on the sides. They looked adorable!
I am confused on whether or not the "t" for baking soda and powder is teaspoons or tablespoons
Thank you!
Standard recipe abbreviations are "t" for teaspoons and "T" for tablespoons. I'll spell it out in the recipe though, it's better. Thanks for the question!
Hi I just had some questions is it possible to add pineapple and coconut to these cupcakes? If so how much of each to add?
Sure! I haven't tried them with either, so I am not sure. I would squeeze the pineapple to get rid of any excess juice or they will make the cupcakes soggy in places. I would probably try 1/4 cup coconut and 1/2 cup diced pineapple but it's entirely up to you and your taste!
Hello
Does this recipe called for salted or unsalted butter? Does it make a difference?
I always use unsalted butter when baking and cooking because then you can control the amount of salt in the final product. Different brands use different amounts of salt and it is impossible to know how much you are using!
Beautiful carrot cupcakes! I would love to get the recipe by weight. Do you think you can email it to me? Also, where do you get your marzipan? Thank you!
Hi Rosemary, The recipe is already converted into weight in parenthesis. I buy it at a grocery store in NYC. I've also made it. It's also generally found in cake decorating supply stores. Happy baking!