Carrot Cake Cupcakes with Chocolate Chips and Cream Cheese Frosting

I haven't always been a fan of carrot cake. In fact, I'm still not a fan of most carrot cakes: the one I had at a coffee shop last week was dry and somewhat bland. For reasons that escape me, I decided to make these anyway. Well: yay! They turned out moist and tasty! I'm definitely going to do this again!! The only thing I changed from the recipe is that I replaced the 2 tablespoons of finely chopped walnuts with 2 tablespoons of semi-sweet chocolate chips.

Ingredients (for the cupcakes):

1/2 cup flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

1 egg

1/4 cup vegetable oil

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

2/3 cup finely shredded carrots, lightly packed

2 tablespoons semi-sweet chocolate chips

you'll also need:

a medium sized mixing bowl

a small mixing bowl

whisk

rubber spatula

cupcake tin

8 paper cupcake liners

wire rack

1. preheat the oven to 350 F. Put the cupcake liner in the tin: this makes 8 cupcakes, so if you have a 12 cupcake tin, put the liners around the edges.

2. in the small mixing bowl, mix (or sift) together the flour, salt, cinnamon and baking powder. Set aside.

3. in the large mixing bowl, beat the egg with the whisk. Beat in the oil, sugar and vanilla until smooth.

4. stir in the flour mixture to moisten; beat until smooth. With the spatula, stir in the carrots, then the chocolate chips.

5. spoon the mixture evenly into the muffin papers, filling each about 2/3 full. Gently tap the pan on the counter to get rid of air bubbles.

6. bake for 20-25 minutes, until they have risen, turned a bit golden and a toothpick comes out clean.

7. place them on the wire rack to cool for 10 minutes, still in the pan. Then remove them and let them cool completely.

Ingredients (for the frosting):

3 tablespoons reduced fat cream cheese, room temperature

1 tablespoon butter, room temperature

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

3/4 to 1 cup powdered sugar

you'll also need:

small mixing bowl

handheld electric mixer (or stand mixer)

knife

1. combine the cream cheese, butter and vanilla in the bowl. Beat with the electric mixer until light and fluffy.

2. gradually add the powdered sugar, 1/4 cup at a time, until the icing is light and easy to spread.

3. spread the icing on each cupcake with a knife. If you want it to be fancy, stuff the icing into a pastry bag and pipe it out in pretty swirls. I didn't, but you can!



 

I got this recipe from Cookery for 1 or 2.