Carrot Cake Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

Today is my birthday and rather than take the day off from work, I decided to work and bake cupcakes to take in to share. I love to bake and I don't do it anymore because really how much can I eat without turning into a blob of sugar.

So I decided to make carrot cake (healthy right...wink wink) into cupcakes so it was easier to transport. I searched high and low for a recipe that didn't have nuts (don't really care for them) and I found this one at Gimme Some Oven. Of course I don't have a food processor so had to grate my carrots by hand, but otherwise I followed it pretty well. It ended up with almost 30 cupcakes.

Carrot Cake Cupcakes

Cupcake Ingredients:
2½ cups (12.5 oz) all-purpose flour
1¼ tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1¼ tsp. ground cinnamon
½ tsp. grated nutmeg
½ tsp. ground ginger
1/8 tsp. ground cloves
½ tsp. salt
1 lb. (6-7 medium) carrots, peeled
1½ cups (10.5 oz) granulated sugar
½ cup packed light brown sugar
4 large eggs
1½ cups canola, safflower or vegetable oil

Preheat the oven to 350° F. Line cupcake pans with 24 paper liners. In a medium mixing bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, spices and salt; whisk together and set aside.

In a food processor fitted with a shredding disk, shred the carrots (you should have about 3 cups). Add the carrots to the bowl with the dry ingredients and set aside. Rinse out the bowl of the food processor and fit with the metal blade. Process the sugars and eggs until frothy and thoroughly combined, about 20 seconds. With the machine running, add the oil in a steady stream through the feed tube. Continue to process until the mixture is light in color and well emulsified, about 20 more seconds. Transfer the mixture to a large mixing bowl. Stir in the carrots and dry ingredients until incorporated and no streaks of flour remain.

Scoop evenly into the prepared cupcake liners, so that each is about 2/3 full. Bake for about 20-24 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let cool in the pan at least 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

I didn't like her frosting recipe so I just used the one from Kraft.

The cupcakes were moist and flavored delicately. I'm really excited that I made these and everyone loves them.