Carrot cake is one of my favourite cakes. I have a severe nut allergy so carrot cake when I’m out and about (ah remember out and about!) is usually not a ‘go’. For this reason and because I’m rather fond of cake in general, I tend to make carrot cake quite a bit at home. These are nut-free carrot cake cupcakes that I’ve been making for years but you can, of course, add some walnuts or nuts of your choice if you have some in the cupboard. During these lockdown times, I am all too aware that we sometimes need to be a little ‘flexible’ with ingredients. And so if you don’t have brown sugar, white granulated sugar will work too. Also, rapeseed or olive oil will work if you don’t have sunflower. Carrot cake cupcakes are about the only way I’m going to get any description of a vegetable into my beige food-loving Olly at the moment. He’s had 3 of these today, so I’m taking it as a win!
I did make up a batch of cream cheese frosting, which is my favourite icing of all time to top off the carrot cake cupcakes. That said these buns are equally nice on their own. There are loads of little steps to get the kids involved in from peeling and grating the carrots, to weighing and mixing the other ingredients.
Carrot Cake Cupcakes
Makes 15 Cupcakes
Ingredients
For the cake:
200g soft light brown sugar
200ml sunflower oil
2 medium eggs
1/2tsp bicarbonate of soda
200g self-raising flour
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon of ground ginger
Pinch of salt
200g of carrot (grated)
For the cream cheese frosting:
500g icing sugar
50g butter
125g cream cheese
Method
- Preheat the oven to 170C and grease and place some cupcake cases in a cupcake tin.
- Place the sugar, eggs and oil in a free-standing mixer (or alternatively use a hand-held mixer) and mix together until well combined.
- Next add in the flour, bicarbonate of soda, cinnamon, ginger and salt and incorporate slowly until well mixed
- Finally, stir in the carrot and pour the mixture into the prepared tin.
- Place in the oven for 25 minutes or until the cupcake bounces back when pressed firmly. Allow the cake to cool slightly before removing from the tin.
- For the cream cheese frosting, place all of the ingredients together in a mixer and beat on high speed for 4-5 minutes. Spoon onto the cooled cupcakes.
