Carrot Cupcakes!

I've always loved carrot cake..since when I was growing up, my mom only made carrot cake or cheesecake. That was the extent of my mom's baking repertoire lol. I don't make carrot cake often and I think I was really craving some when I baked these. They turned out quite well, the only fumble I had was with the white chocolate in the frosting..I didn't work fast enough and there were some tiny white chocolate bits in there..oops :X I also found the frosting rather sweet, but that might just be because my mom never frosted her cake, so I'm used to eating carrot cake unfrosted lol. Mmm but looking at these photos makes me want to make carrot cake all over again :)


before frosting


after frosting


...and inside!

Carrot Cupcakes
from allrecipes

Ingredients

Frosting

2 ounces white chocolate
1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon orange extract
4 cups confectioners' sugar
2 tablespoons heavy cream

Cake

2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 1/8 cups white sugar
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups shredded carrots
1/2 cup crushed pineapple
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1 cup chopped walnuts

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease 12 muffin cups.

2. In small saucepan, melt white chocolate over low heat. Stir until smooth, and allow to cool to room temperature.

3. In a bowl, beat together the cream cheese and butter until smooth. Mix in white chocolate, 1 teaspoon vanilla, and orange extract. Gradually beat in the confectioners' sugar until the mixture is fluffy. Mix in heavy cream.

4. Beat together the eggs, white sugar, and brown sugar in a bowl, and mix in the oil and vanilla. Fold in carrots and pineapple. In a separate bowl, mix the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger. Mix flour mixture into the carrot mixture until evenly moist. Fold in 1/2 cup walnuts. Transfer to the prepared muffin cups.

5. Bake 25 minutes in the preheated oven, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean. Cool completely on wire racks before topping with the icing and sprinkling with remaining walnuts.