Easy Carrot Cake Cupcakes Recipe

Hey, I'm John Kanell, and today on Preppy Kitchen, we're making some dreamy, delicious carrot cupcakes. So let's get started. First off, set your oven to 350 and line a muffin tin with papers. Now, we're gonna do the tiniest bit of prep work. We need shredded carrot for our carrot cake cupcakes. So grab some carrots, give them a peel, and shred until you have two cups or 225 grams. This is one of those times where you should do it by hand and not use the shortcut. You want these shredded fresh, not out of a container. Those have less moisture in them, and the whole point of this in your baked good is one, to add that slight vegetal flavor, but two, to add a ton of moisture so they are melt-in-your-mouth amazing. A lovely mountain of carrots. Traditionally, carrots were not orange. They were either like dark red or white. These ones were bred to celebrate William of Orange of the House of Orange. He was the Dutch king that became the king of England during the Glorious Revolution. I'm setting aside my carrots and completing my prep by chopping up half a cup or 60 grams of walnuts. If you'd prefer, you could definitely use pecans instead, by the way, and toasting your nuts is always an option. By the way, if you like my videos, go ahead and hit that subscribe button. There's two new recipes every single week. Walnuts nicely chopped, set those aside, and now we can whisk together our dry ingredients. Into a large bowl, I'm adding one and 1 1⁄4 cups or 150 grams of all-purpose flour. So important to have the correct amount of flour in these recipes. Perfect. To puff things up and counteract all of that heavy, but delicious carrot, one teaspoon of baking powder and one teaspoon of baking soda. For a little contrast, 3 1⁄4 of a teaspoon of salt, and now for our warming spices. Carrot cake is a delicious vehicle for silky cream cheese frosting. And when you taste the cake, oftentimes what you're primarily tasting are the spices. So about 1⁄4 teaspoon of cinnamon, 1⁄4 teaspoon of ground ginger, and 1⁄4 teaspoon of nutmeg. If you wanted to add some more of your favorites, go ahead and add a pinch to 1⁄4 teaspoon of cardamom, all spice. Mace. Grab a whisk. Our scale's done. And we're gonna mix this up. Okay. Set your dry ingredients aside. Into another large bowl, I'm adding 1⁄2 a cup of granulated sugar, that's 100 grams. 1⁄3 of a cup of packed light brown sugar, that's 67 grams. Brown sugar is basically just white sugar tossed in molasses so it has a little bit of extra moisture, a little bit of extra acid to react with the baking soda, and it gives you a lovely depth of flavor, kind of caramel. 3⁄4 of a cup of vegetable oil, but you could use any neutral oil that you like, including avocado. One teaspoon of vanilla, and two large room temperature eggs. I'm a little sad that cupcakes are so out of fashion at the moment. It's like 10 years ago, they were like all the rage. But I grew up, as a child, much longer than 10 years ago, having cupcakes at parties, and for me, they're a really fun and easy way to feed a bunch of people at a party, especially kids. You don't have to worry about cutting a cake, they bake up so fast, they're easier to decorate, and I don't know, they have a lot of nostalgia. I think they should make a little bit of a comeback. Not crazy, but just a little bit more popular than they are now, in every flavor. Whisk this up till it's nice and smooth. And if you have a carrot cake variation that you love from your family, please let me know in the comments. My personal one that I grew up with was very similar, but my mom, she would substitute some of the vegetable oil out for applesauce, and she would add a little bit of pineapple, which is delicious. So I grew up thinking carrot cake always had pineapple and raisins, as well as carrot. Nice and smooth, lovely. Now it's time to pour the wet into the dry, or the dry into the wet, it doesn't matter. Use your spatula to fold the wet and the dry together until you still see some streaks of flour remaining. It'll be fully mixed after we add all the add-ins in. Mostly mixed, but I still see some flour, so now we can add our carrot and walnuts in. Add the carrots, as well as your nuts. Now complete the mixing so everything is nicely distributed. Make sure to scrape the bowl down as you mix, because there will be some flour lurking around. Grab your muffin tin, and now we're gonna distribute the batter evenly. They should be about 3 1⁄4 of the way full, or right up to the top. Continue distributing until it's all gone. The pressure is on, I've been overfilling. Let's see if the last one comes out okay. I'm much more proud than I should be of filling all these cupcake papers out evenly, or evenly-ish. Into the oven, 350 for 17 to 20 minutes, or until the centers spring back when lightly touched. Especially these middle two, those will cook the slowest. Once they're done, we'll make our dreamy cream cheese frosting. In you go. My cupcakes are cooling, so now it's time to make a dreamy and very easy cream cheese frosting. Eight ounces, or 226 grams, of room temperature cream cheese. It should be softened, and if it's hard, take it out of its foil packaging, place it on a plate and microwave at half power in 10 second bursts until it's soft. Take it out of the packaging. You'll also want 113 grams, or half a cup, of softened, or room temperature, unsalted butter. Pop your paddle attachment on, and we're gonna mix these up until they're creamy and combined. Medium speed for about a minute. Once combined, I'm going to add in a pinch of salt, maybe even two. And I have six cups of powdered sugar that have been sifted, so there's no lumps. Sifting is optional, but I do not like any clumps, especially if we're gonna pipe this. If you're smearing it on the top, it doesn't matter as much, but you don't want anything clogging your piping tips. You can add this in a cup or so at a time. Now we're gonna mix this on low. As it incorporates, just continue adding more. And you could do this while it's running, but with my track record of messes in the kitchen, it's not a good idea. Almost done. Cream cheese frosting is one of my favorites. However, there are two things that you need to know. The first being that it is a little bit more slack than normal frosting, meaning it's droopy. So don't expect the sharpest of lines, and if it's at room temperature, it'll settle a bit. The other thing is that because this is a lot of dairy, you do not store these cupcakes at room temperature. They'll be stored in the refrigerator once assembled. That's another good reason to use oil in the cupcakes, because the butter would be rock hard out of the fridge. The last of my sugar is in, so I'm gonna add a teaspoon of vanilla. Now I can scrape the bowl down, because I didn't do that one single time. I'm sure that whatever is clinging to the bowl is less sweet than what's in the middle. Finish this up by increasing speed to medium, and beating until light and fluffy. It'll be about a minute. If you're assembling the cupcakes now, go ahead and grab your piping bag and piping tips, or an offset spatula, or a triggered ice cream scoop, whatever you're using to make this happen. Just like that, you can see it's ready, and look at the difference. This is what I scraped the bowl down with, and this is what we have now. The color is much lighter and wider, just from pumping the air in from mixing on medium. Once your cupcakes are cooled, you're ready to frost them, and you have a couple choices here. You could grab a triggered scoop, plop it on. I mean, this is serviceable. I would eat this. But, you know, you can tamp it down with an offset, and give it either a little swirl or a flat top. It's totally up to you. A sprinkle of some chopped walnuts, maybe. And that looks pretty nice. But, you could also pipe this. So I have a large closed star piping tip here, my favorite. An 846. And here, I think the classic is just to start in the middle, squeeze towards the edge, and move your way up, until you have a beautiful cupcake, just like that. Also sprinkled with a few chopped walnuts. The beauty of having a soft cream cheese frosting, if things are a little slanted, tap, tap, tap, you just tap it into place, and it'll be fixed. Whichever way you prefer, continue decorating the rest of the cupcakes until they're all done, and just like that, they're ready to enjoy. Speaking of enjoyment, I have one of these with my name written on it. Pop the bottom off, sandwich it on top, and you have the best snack ever. It's such a hug. The cake is really, really tender, but it has these soft, but more substantial carrot pieces all throughout, with the crunchy walnuts, and the luscious frosting, and all the spices. It's just plain delicious. I hope you get a chance to make this recipe, and if you like my videos, hit that subscribe button, and check out my cupcake playlist.