Carrot Cake Cupcakes

Hi Everyone! I wanted to quickly stop by and wish you a happy Easter! I hope you’ve all had a wonderful weekend celebrating with friends and family, eating some delicious food and hopefully enjoying some spring weather! We went out for a walk today (to walk off all that Easter ham! And the chocolate. And all the other treats…) and it couldn’t have been a more beautiful day! It was warm and sunny and there were beautiful bright yellow daffodils peeking out of the ground around every corner! I love this time of the year, when everything begins to bloom and come back to life! The cherry blossoms in DC are supposed to be in full bloom next weekend and I can’t wait to go out and see them, it’s one of my favorite things about this area (you can check out some of my pictures from last year’s Cherry Blossom Festival here)! I also wanted to share these Carrot Cake Cupcakes with you today! I made these over the weekend to give away as Easter treats (and maybe kept a couple for us to eat!) and wanted to stop by and tell you how I made them!

CARROT CAKE CUPCAKES

YOU WILL NEED
1 recipe carrot cake cupcakes (this is one of my favorites)
1 recipe cream cheese frosting (I used this one)
Finely chopped walnuts or pecans (about 1 cup or so)
Marzipan carrots to top cupcakes (mine were store-bought)

DIRECTIONS
To make these Carrot Cake Cupcakes, first make your cupcakes. I followed this recipe with a couple adjustments: I didn’t add raisins or walnuts into my cupcakes since I was going to add the chopped walnut border around the frosting. I also adjusted the baking temperature and time, I baked the cupcakes at 350 deg F, for about 20 – 25 minutes (you can adjust the baking time to suit your oven, just make sure a toothpick comes out clean once you think they’re done). Whenever I make carrot cake cupcakes, I grate the carrots on the finer side of the grater, because since the cupcakes are smaller than a cake, I want smaller pieces of carrot in them… but you can grate them however you want! This recipe makes a LOT of cupcakes (about 2 dozen), so cut it in half if you want a smaller batch.

For the cream cheese frosting, I used this recipe, which I find makes pretty much the perfect amount of frosting for the amount of cupcakes. To make the frosting, first, make sure that both the cream cheese and the butter are softened and at room temperature before you use them! There’s nothing worse than lumpy frosting! Once I’ve made the frosting, I always press it through a sifter (is that even a culinary phrase?! You know what I mean.) once or twice, just to make sure that there are absolutely no lumps and the frosting is completely smooth.

Let your carrot cake cupcakes cool completely before frosting them, so the frosting doesn’t melt right off! To frost them, I didn’t even use a piping bag, I just spread the frosting on the top of each cupcake evenly using a knife, going right up to the edges of the cupcake. Then, I smoothed out the top, and rolled the edges in the finely chopped nuts (you could use walnuts or pecans, I used walnuts). Gently shake off the excess nuts off the cupcake, then top each with a marzipan carrot! (Mine were store-bought, but you can definitely make your own homemade!) Store the cupcakes in the fridge, in an airtight container, then take them out about thirty minutes or so before eating them so they have time to come back to room temperature again.

If you’re a carrot cake lover, you will LOVE these Carrot Cake Cupcakes! They are super moist and have that great warm, spiced flavor so characteristic for carrot cake! And of course there’s no better classic pairing than carrot cake and cream cheese frosting. The chopped nut border and little marzipan carrots just make the cupcakes a little extra special, perfect for Easter, or any other special occasion!

I hope you all had a wonderful Easter! Thank you so much for stopping by today, have a wonderful week!
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