Mini Carrot Cupcakes

Happy New Year!  I’ve made it my goal to post one blog entry a week.  This means I’ll be doing a lot of baking.  My husband loves that idea.  Welcome to the first post of (hopefully 52) posts for 2012

I try bake goodies for everyone’s birthdays at work.  My boss’ birthday was last Tuesday and she requested carrot cupcakes.  I’d made carrot cake before, and I thought carrot cupcakes would be very rich with that recipe, so I decided to make them mini cupcakes instead.  I like this recipe because you can make the batter in the food processor after grating the carrots and not have to clean two appliances. 

The only mini liners I could dig up were Easter ones that were too small for my pan, so I ditched the liners and sprayed the heck out of the pan.  I found that if I sprayed too much, the cupcakes couldn’t get a grip on the edge of the pan when rising and looked funny after baking.  I think next time I will also process the carrots a little with the regular processor blade so the carrot bits are smaller in the batter.

These are pretty tasty on their own, but are even better topped with a dollop of my favorite fluffy cream cheese icing, recipe included below.

Food Processor Mini Carrot Cupcakes

Ingredients

12½ oz  unbleached all-purpose flour (2½ cups)

1¼ tsp   baking powder

1 tsp      baking soda

1¼ tsp   ground cinnamon

½ tsp     ground nutmeg

¹/₈ tsp   ground cloves

½ tsp     table salt

1 lb         medium carrots (6 to 7 carrots), peeled

10½ oz  granulated sugar (1½ cups)

3 ½ oz    packed light brown sugar (½ cup)

4              large eggs

1½ c       vegetable oil , safflower oil, or canola oil

Instructions

1.       Adjust oven rack to middle position; heat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a mini cupcake pan with nonstick cooking spray or line with paper cups.

2.       Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and salt in large bowl; set aside.

3.       In food processor fitted with large shredding disk, shred carrots (you should get about 3 cups); transfer carrots to bowl and set aside. Wipe out food processor and stick the metal blade in.  Process both sugars and the eggs until frothy and thoroughly combined, about 20 seconds. With machine running, add oil through feed tube in steady stream.  Process until mixture is light in color and well emulsified, about 20 seconds longer.  Scrape mixture into medium bowl.  Stir in carrots and dry ingredients until incorporated and no streaks of flour remain.  Portion about Two tablespoons of batter into each cup and bake until toothpick or skewer inserted into center of cake comes out clean, about 7-8 minutes, rotating pan halfway through baking time. Cool cups in pans for 5 minutes, then turn out onto a cooling rack and let cool completely before frosting.

Source: CooksIllustrated.com

Fluffy Cream Cheese Frosting

Ingredients

12 T        unsalted butter, softened

12 oz      confectioner’s sugar (3 cups)

12 oz      cream cheese, cut into 6 pieces, softened

1 tsp      vanilla extract

Dash      salt

Instructions

1.       With an electric mixer, beat butter and sugar on medium-high speed until fluffy, about 2 minutes.  Add cream cheese, one piece at a time, and beat until incorporated, about 30 seconds.  Beat in vanilla and salt.  Refrigerate until ready to use.

Source: CooksCountry.com