Carrot Cake Cupcakes

I love a good carrot cake so I’ve tried a few and while I don’t really want to oversell this, I think I’ve found the best recipe of the batch. A deliciously moist sponge with the perfect amount of spice interspersed with chunks of walnuts and pecans to add some depth to the texture.  I based my recipe on the one from the hummingbird bakery, but adjusted it slightly to make them spicier. Pecans and walnuts for extra flavor, and cupcakes because what could be better than your own mini cake. 

Just look at that perfect dome! 

To make your own you do need a whole host of ingredients; 300ml of vegetable oil, 3 eggs, 300grams of brown sugar, 300grams self raising flour, 1/2tsp of salt, 1tsp cinnamon, 1tsp of ginger, 1tsp of nutmeg, 1/2tsp of ground cloves, 1tsp vanilla essence. 300grams grated carrots, 75gr chopped pecans, 75 grams of chopped walnuts.  I managed to get 20 cupcakes out of this recipe.

Once you’ve gotten all of that together, you want to whisk together the eggs, sugar and oil until you have something that looks like this:

Make sure you’ve got plenty of air mixed in; it helps with the fluffiness of the cupcakes later on. Add all your dry ingredients to this, gently folding them into the mix. The batter will start to thicken up and be much nicer on the eyes. Finally, add your vanilla essence and you’re done.

Pour your mix into muffin trays filling them 2/3 of the way.  These rise beautifully so don’t over do it, bake for exactly 22 minutes at 170 degrees and finally you’ll be left with these. PS. Ignore the ones in the middle on the far right and left they were misbehaving.

Personally I think these are best straight from the oven, with a cup of tea. If you manage to have any left over by the time they’re cooled, cream cheese icing on top is pretty much the perfect pairing.

Check out these beauties : ) I took them to work the next day and they were demolished by 11am.