Carrot Cake Cupcakes

Homemade Carrot Cake Cupcakes have amazing texture and fresh carrot flavor. You’ll love the soft and moist crumb studded with pecans, raisins and plenty of tender carrots. The Cream Cheese frosting pipes beautifully and is sturdy enough to add color.

Ingredients

• 1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour,
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves, optional
• 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
• 2/3 cup vegetable oil or extra light olive oil
• 3 large eggs, room temperature
• 1/2 cup applesauce
• 1 1/2 cups finely grated and peeled carrots, from 2 medium carrots
• 1 cup pecans or walnuts, finely chopped
• 1/2 cup golden raisins, or regular raisins
• 1 recipe Cream Cheese Frosting
• gel food coloring, orange and green

Instructions

To Make Carrot Cake Cupcakes:

Preheat oven to 350 F and line muffin tins with 18 liners. Set out your frosting ingredients to bring to room temperature.

In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, allspice and salt. Whisk together.

Whisk in vegetable oil, eggs, and applesauce, stirring until well combined.

Using a spatula, fold in grated carrots, chopped nuts and raisins. Fold just until ingredients are incorporated into the batter.

Divide the batter evenly between 18 cupcake liners, filling about 2/3 full. Bake at 350°F for 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool in pans for 3-5 minutes then transfer to a wire rack and cool completely to room temperature before frosting.

To Decorate Cupcakes:

Make cream cheese frosting. Add about 3/4 cup frosting to 2 small bowls. Add orange food coloring to one and green food coloring to the other, adding just enough to reach your desired color.

Transfer remaining white frosting to a piping bag fitted with a large open star tip Wilton 1M and pipe over your cooled cupcakes.

Transfer tinted frosting to piping bags fitted with a small open star tip Wilton 32 and another bag fitted with a large round tip Wilton 2A.