Carrot cake and cream cheese frosting is the perfect match – and I’m pleased to say I may have upped the ante here with this carrot-apple combination, topped with maple-cream cheese frosting.
I took inspiration from the Carrot Apple Bread recipe here – doubling the ingredients with a few minor modifications.
There’s no chance of a dry batch here – with both the carrot and apple added, the resulting cakes are super moist.
I then took advice from this blog on making a smooth & fluffy cream cheese frosting without using icing sugar, again with a few minor adjustments like using maple sugar instead of granulated white sugar. I also added hazelnut butter to half of the batch for two types of cupcake.
So here is the recipe, adapted from the above links –
Carrot & Apple Cupcakes
Ingredients
- 2 eggs
- 1 cup coconut sugar
- 2/3 cup liquid-state coconut oil
- 1/2 cup greek yoghurt
- 1 tsp vanilla bean paste
- 2 tsp cinnamon, preferably freshly ground
- 1 tsp nutmeg, preferably freshly ground
- 2 cup whole grain spelt flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- pinch of salt, optional
- 2 medium peeled and grated carrots
- 2 medium peeled and grated pink lady apples
Directions
- Preheat oven to 175c (fan forced)
- Spray medium-sized muffin tray with an olive oil spray, or grease lightly with coconut oil. You could otherwise use cupcake/muffin cases but I decided against it this time.
- In a large mixing bowl, add the eggs, coconut sugar, coconut oil, greek yoghurt, vanilla, cinnamon and nutmeg, and lightly combine with an electric beater
- Add the spelt flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt, and fold through with a spatula trying not to overmix
- Add the carrots and apples, and fold again until it is just combined
- The batter will be very thick – this is how it should be. Spoon the batter into the muffin tin, each cup should be about 80% full. Press down gently in the corners if necessary.
- Bake for approximately 25 minutes – mine were spot on at 25 mins, however this will depend on the size of your muffin tin. Check at 25 minutes and they will be ready if a skewer comes out clean.
- Let them rest in the tin for a couple mins, and then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely.
Doubling the original recipe for the above volumes made 14 cakes. Again, this may slightly differ for others, depending on the size of the tins and how much you fill them.
Maple Cream Cheese Frosting & Hazelnut Cream Cheese Frosting
Ingredients
- 2/3 cup maple sugar
- 1/2 stick of butter, room temperature
- 1 block (250g) of Philadelphia cream cheese, room temperature
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- And for half the mix – 1/4 cup of hazelnut butter
Directions
- It is important to make sure all of the ingredients are at room temperature
- Beat the sugar and butter together until combined
- Add the cream cheese, then beat for about 3-5 minutes with an electric beater until it becomes light & fluffy and the sugar has dissolved into the mix (test some to make sure it is smooth and not grainy)
- I then halved the recipe – one half I left as-is, and to the other I added the hazelnut butter and beat this through again until it was fully combined.
I then refrigerated the frosting for a short period of time (about 30 mins) until the cupcakes were completely cooled. I wouldn’t recommend refrigerating for too long, as it tends to solidify again.
And for some pics, fresh out of the oven –
Getting ready for decorating –
The piped cupcakes – now I have to note that I am not well practised in the art of cake decorating, but this was an opportunity for a bit of practise. I tried two different piping tips, the open star worked well as shown below and the plain circular tip not so much. Let’s just say it didn’t give the cakes the most appetising appearance, so I used a knife to re-shape a little. Oh well, practise makes perfect.
Here are the “successful” ones –
Two tiers of cake! Including the not so successfully frosted ones (still tasted good though!) –
AllTheFood 