Hello all! Baking is back! And once again, I am experimenting with filled cupcakes. This time, I did half of a recipe one way and then changed it up for the other half. If you only want to do it one way, then just adjust that part of the recipe!

Alright so this time I decided to make carrot cake cupcakes. Half of them also have a cream cheese center. The recipe is a little long because I adapted it from a carrot cake recipe. But it is not that difficult…just long so stick with it! It’ll be worth it!

Ingredients:

Cake:

1 cup golden raisins

1 pound grated carrots

1 cup buttermilk

2 1/2 cups flour

4 tsp cinnamon

2 tsp baking powder

1 1/2 teaspoon salt

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

4 eggs

3/4 cups brown sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla

3/4 cup vegetable oil

Cream Cheese Filling:

8 oz. cream cheese

1/2 cup sugar

1 egg

1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Cream Cheese Icing: 

8 oz. cream cheese

1/2 cup room temperature butter

1 cup powdered sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 and line your cupcake trays with paper liners.

Combine carrots and buttermilk in a medium bowl and set aside.

Whisk flour, cinnamon, baking powder, salt, and baking soda in a large bowl and set aside.

Using a mixer on high speed, mix eggs, sugar, brown sugar, and vanilla until the mixture is pale and thick. Change the speed of the mixer from high to medium and gradually add the oil.

In alternating additions, add the dry ingredients and the carrots. Start and end with the dry ingredients over the course of three additions. The carrots should be added in two additions. Mix until completely smooth and then fold in the raisins.

If doing regular cupcakes, fill the tin until almost full. If doing cream cheese filled, fill the tin 2/3 of the way up.

For cream cheese filling, beat together the cream cheese, sugar and egg until completely combined. Add the walnuts. Spoon on top of the cupcakes.

Bake all cupcakes until a toothpick comes out clean. About 20-25 for all of them depending on your oven.

For the icing, use a mixer to beat the cream cheese until smooth. Then add the butter and beat until well blended. Add the powdered sugar and vanilla and beat until smooth. Do not attempt to frost cupcakes until completely smooth.

Typically carrot cake has walnuts in it, but we decided they were only necessary in the cream cheese filled ones.

I would love to hear what you think about these so comment if you end up trying them!

Until next time…