It’s not really true, but carrot cupcakes sound so much healthier than your average cupcake. They do at least taste a lot less sweet, especially due to the cream cheese frosting. I prefer this recipe over many other variations because it uses pineapple to increase moisture, instead of the more popular raisins (I’m not a fan of dried fruit). I’ve also used this opportunity to practice what I learned in my cake decorating course again.

Ingredients:

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350°F. Lightly grease 24 muffin tins, or use paper baking cups. 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 walnuts. Transfer to the prepared muffin cups. Bake 25 minutes, or until a knife inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean. Cool completely before topping with the icing.

In small pan (or microwave), melt white chocolate over low heat. Stir until smooth, and allow to cool to room temperature. In a bowl, beat together the cream cheese and butter until smooth. Mix in white chocolate,  vanilla, and orange extract. Gradually beat in the icing sugar until the mixture is fluffy. Mix in heavy cream.

Note: this makes a LOT of icing. You could safely cut the icing in half if you don’t want too much. White chocolate is also not necessary, if you don’t have any on hand.

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