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| Carrot Cupcakes with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting |
We’re off to our friend Andy’s birthday party tonight, and we’re bringing him something he loves– carrot cake. I use The Barefoot Contessa’s carrot cake recipe, but I omit the nuts and raisins. If you are a nut/raisin person, and use the raisins, make sure you plump the raisins in some boiling water for about a minute before adding them to your batter. The hint of cinnamon in the delicious cream cheese frosting is heaven. Appropriate, since the world is supposed to end today? 😉
Recipe from The Barefoot Contessa
Ingredients
2 cups sugar
1 1/3 cups vegetable oil
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
3 extra-large eggs
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
3 cups grated carrots (less than 1 pound)
1 cup raisins
1 cup chopped walnuts
For the frosting:
3/4 pound cream cheese, at room temperature
1/2 pound unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 pound confectioners’ sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
Directions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
Beat the sugar, oil, and vanilla together in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. Add the eggs, 1 at a time. In another bowl, sift together the flour, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt. With the mixer on low speed, add 1/2 of the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients. Add the grated carrots, raisins, and walnuts to the remaining flour, mix well, and add to the batter. Mix until just combined.
Line muffin pans with paper liners. Scoop the batter into 22 muffin cups until each is 3/4 full. Bake at 350 degrees for about 35 minutes, (this is the baking time Ina Garten suggests- I would start checking at 20 minutes for doneness.) until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool on a rack.
For the frosting, cream the cream cheese, butter, cinnamon, and vanilla in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. Add the sugar and beat until smooth.
When the cupcakes are cool, frost them generously, sprinkle with just a touch more cinnamon, and serve.
Rumbly in my Tumbly 
Hi Shannon! I’ve made several of your recipes now and I everything has been fabulous. I can to your site to see if you had a carrot layer cake recipe with cream cheese frosting and found these cupcakes, but was wondering if you’ve ever baked them as a layer cake and used the same frosting recipe to layer and ice it? I trust your advice as absolutely everything I’ve tried from your site has been phenomenal!
Hi Leigh, thanks for reading! I have not made this particular recipe into a carrot cake, but I would never hesitate to turn a cupcake recipe into a cake. I’d divide the batter into 3 cake pans and bake for a shorter period (prob around 20 minutes.) If you try this, let me know how it goes!
The recipe I usually use for carrot cake is also Ina Garten’s. I have never photographed it and put it on the blog, but I’ve made it many times and it’s tried and true! Here is the link to the recipe: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/carrot-and-pineapple-cake-recipe-1953437
Thanks so much for the reply Shannon and holy cow typos in my first comment. Yikes! Sorry! I plan on making this carrot cake for a co-workers’ birthday next Friday so I will let you know how it goes. Thanks again for all the fabulous recipes, I have been having so much fun reading back through your archives and pinning everything I want to try from your site!