Carrot Cupcakes

No Easter celebration would be complete with out these carrot cupcakes. Especially if kids are involved.

I have been having so much fun baking up some cute Easter treats.  Earlier this week you may have seen the cute Easter bunny cupcakes I made.  Well today I’m sharing the perfect accompanying cupcake.  These carrot cupcakes.  Not only do they look like a carrot patch, they are actually carrot cake!

I made a from scratch carrot cake recipe for these cupcakes, but you could use your favorite boxed cake mix too.  Once the cupcakes were cooled, I frosted them with my favorite cream cheese frosting and then covered the frosting with graham cracker crumbs.  I colored about 1 cup of the frosting orange using red and yellow food coloring.  I put the orange frosting in a piping bag with a large round tip.  I piped the frosting onto the center of the cupcake to make it look like the top of a carrot coming out of the ground.  I then cut a few pieces of some edible easter grass to stick in the tops.

Yield: 24 cupcakes

Carrot Cupcakes

Print

These carrot cupcakes will be a hit at your Easter celebrations.

Prep Time 40 minutes

Cook Time 25 minutes

Total Time 1 hour 5 minutes

Ingredients

For Cupcakes:

• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 2 tsp. cinnamon
• 1 tsp. nutmeg
• 2 tsp. baking soda
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 1/2 cups oil
• 4 eggs
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 3 cups grated carrots
• 1 1/2 cups chopped pecans (optional)

For Frosting:

• 1 (8oz) block cream cheese - room temperature
• 1 stick (1/2 cup) butter - room temperature
• 2 tsp. vanilla
• 2 TBL milk
• 1 (1 pound) box powdered sugar

For Carrot tops:

• crushed graham crackers
• orange food coloring (or red and yellow to make orange)
• piping bag
• large round frosting tip
• And if you can find it - edible easter grass for the tops
• shredded coconut dyed green will work too

Instructions

For Cupcakes

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place cupcake liners in cupcake pans (2 pans). In a mixing bowl combine sugars, flour, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt. Add eggs, oil and vanilla and blend until all combined. Add carrots and nuts and mix. Fill cups 3/4 full and bake for 20-25 minutes. Let cool before frosting.

For Frosting

1. In a bowl cream together cream cheese and butter. Add vanilla and milk and mix. Add powdered sugar and mix until everything is combined. Scrapping the sides of the bowl if needed.

To Make Carrot Tops

1. Spoon approx. 1 cup of frosting into a small bowl and tint orange with food coloring. Fit frosting tip into piping bag and fill bag with orange frosting. Set aside. Using a knife, simply frost the cooled cupcakes. Fill a small bowl with crushed graham crackers and dip frosted cupcakes into the crackers. Create the carrot coming out of the cupcake using the orange frosting. Cut some pieces of edible easter grass and stick in the tops of the carrots.

Now if you can’t find edible easter grass, you could always use sweetened coconut dyed green with a little food coloring.  That works just as well.

Aren’t these cupcakes the perfect pair?  I haven’t seen a cuter combo!

These will be so fun on your Easter dessert table for sure!  They will be a hit with kids and adults too!

Do you make any special treats for Easter?

Happy Baking!

Liz