Carrot Cake Cupcakes are an easy one-bowl win for Spring

Why these carrot cake cupcakes will win the day

1. So much flavor: Just like my Easter egg cakes, these cakes are loaded with shredded carrots, pineapple, walnuts (or pecans), coconut, and just enough spice to tie everything together without feeling heavy.
2. Double dose of frosting: Everybody loves cream cheese frosting. That tangy lightly sweet flavor is a perfect compliment to the various flavors and textures of a good carrot cake. With an extra layer of frosting in the middle of the cupcake, these little carrot cakes have a feel of a carrot cake Twinkie.
3. Feeds a crowd: This recipe makes 18 cupcakes, so they’re perfect for an Easter potluck, baby shower, or other big family get-together.

How to make carrot cake healthier

In theory carrot cake sounds like a recipe that should be healthy. Sadly, too many carrot cakes are loaded with junky oils and far far too much sugar. Here’s how my recipe is different:

1. Getting rid of seed oils: Traditional carrot cake recipes get their moisture from a whole lot of oil. While that makes for indeed a moist cake that stays soft since oil doesn’t harden in the fridge like butter, it also makes for a dense cake. If you’re trying to get seed oils out of your life, my cake uses half the oil (I’m recommending healthier for you olive or avocado oil) and swaps in flavorful carrot juice. This makes for a lighter but still moist cake.
2. Less sugar: Along with the oil, traditional carrot cakes can have a shocking amount of sugar. I instead lower the sugar so that you can taste all the good flavors of the ingredients while still getting the good crumb and browning that sugar brings to the cake party.

Incredibly easy process for making mini carrot cakes

1. Prep: Shred the carrots (I use my food processor

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   ). Chop the nuts. Drain the pineapple and chop it into small pieces. Grease 18 wells in 2 muffin pans with a little melted butter and then either flour it or coat the insides with breadcrumbs.
2. Make the batter: Whisk the egg with the sugar until smooth. Add in the oil, juice, vanilla, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt, whisking until smooth. Add in the flour, nuts, carrot shreds, pineapple, and coconut. Stir just until you have a smooth batter.
3. Bake: Fill the wells in the pan with the batter almost up to the top. Bake the cakes for 20-25 minutes until a toothpick inserted into the center of each cake comes out clean.
4. Cool and cut: Let the cakes cool in the pan for about 5 minutes before overturning them onto a rack to finish cooling. Cut each cake in half vertically.
5. Add the frosting: Beat the frosting ingredients together with a hand mixer or a stand mixer until smooth and creamy. Fit a pastry bag with your favorite decorative tip and then fill the bag with the frosting. Pipe a small bit of frosting between the top and bottom layers of each cupcake. Sandwich the layers together and then pipe a nice rosette on top of each cupcake.
6. Finish decorating: Sprinkle each cupcake with a few more carrot shreds and some extra walnuts.

Tips for making the best carrot cake cupcakes

1. Butter the top of the pan: Cupcakes don’t usually stick if they pop out of the tops of each well, but it’s never a bad idea to butter around the top edges of each well just to make sure.
2. Butter and breadcrumb the muffin tins: While you can line your muffin tins with muffin liners

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   , I prefer to butter the pan and coat the insides of each well with breadcrumbs. The cakes get a little crust on them they won’t get in a muffin paper which is a nice contrast to the creamy frosting. Plus, without the papers, you won’t ever have to fight the paper sticking to the cupcake. You can use flour in place of the breadcrumbs, but the breadcrumbs tend to sink into the cake batter, leaving you less of a white cast around the cake that you sometimes get from flour.
3. Slice and fill: The cleanest way to fill these cupcakes is to cut the cake in half vertically, sandwiching the layers with frosting. This means you waste no cake (vs. if you cored out the center), and get a beautiful ring of frosting around the middle.
4. Squeeze counterclockwise for the best frosting swirl: To pipe the best rosettes, squeeze your pastry bag from the top counterclockwise around the edges of the cupcake. Let the frosting overlap itself as you finish and pull straight upwards for a nice domed bit of frosting.
5. Skip the frosting swirl if you’re making these with kids: Kids often don’t have the hand strength to squeeze out frosting from piping bags. The good thing is that cream cheese frosting is incredibly forgiving and tastes just as good if you use a spoon to top and fill your cakes. There is no shame is using a spoon to decorate these!

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