precarious panther

Back when I was working in the city there was a great little cupcake shop on George St that Dain and I occasionally visited during our lunch breaks. The cute boutique shop had display windows filled with every kind of cupcake imaginable – and after trying them we were hooked (frequently having to buy enough to bring home to my partner!)

One of my favourite flavours was Carrot which was topped with a fantastically creamy (and not overly sweet) cream cheese frosting. Since moving away from the city I’ve been looking for a similar recipe without success. In the end I mixed and matched ingredients and ideas from a variety of different sources (cookbooks, internet) and have refined the final recipe into something that rivals my original favourite. Standard carrot cake recipes can’t simply be translated to cupcakes as they become far to dry when cooked at such small sizes. Some recipes use sultanas/raisins to help boost the moisture, however I chose to use pineapple as it’s not as rich (and Amy hates sultanas!)

This recipe can be a bit fiddly and time consuming (especially on cleanup) but it’s definitely worth it. It takes about an hour to prepare and cook the cakes, then about 20 minutes to prepare and frost them.

Ingredients

Carrot Cupcakes	Lemon Cheese Frosting	Garnish
1 Cup White Sugar 1/3 Cup Brown Sugar 2 Large Eggs 1/2 Cup Olive Oil 1 tsp Vanilla Essence 2 Cups peeled, grated carrots 1/2 Cup Crushed Pineapple (Not diced) 1 1/2 Cups Plain Flour 1 1/4 tsp Baking Powder/Baking Soda 1/2 tsp salt 2 tsp ground cinnamon 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg	60 g White Chocolate 250 g Cream Cheese (room temperature) 50 g Butter (room temperature) 2 tsp lemon essence 2 Cups Sifted Icing Mixture/Sugar 2 Tbs Thickened Cream	Royal Icing Carrots: 1 Large Egg White 3 Cups Icing Sugar Orange + Green Food Colouring OR Pecan Nuts/Walnuts

Directions:

Carrot Cupcakes

1. Preheat the oven to 180*C.
2. Grease 24 large cupcake tins, or 48 of the mini ones (I made 12 large and 24 mini with each batch) with olive oil or melted butter – avoid using paper cups as combined with the frosting this makes them awkward to eat.
3. Cream together the eggs and vanilla essence with both the white and brown with an electric mixer until they are well combined, then mix in the olive oil. Don’t froth the mixture too vigorously, just make sure the oil is combined completely.
4. Gently mix in the crushed pineapple and grated carrots. Do this manually rather than using a beater otherwise you’ll shred the pineapple and carrot. Set the mixture aside.
5. With another bowl, sift and then mix together the plain flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg. Mix the dry ingredients well as it’s important that the baking soda is evenly distributed through the mixture.
6. Gradually transfer the flour mixture into the liquid mixture and combine well.
7. Fill each of your prepared cupcake tins to one cm below the top of the tin. This helps avoid the cupcakes rising too much which makes them difficult to frost.
8. Bake for approximately 25 minutes for the large tins and 15 minutes for the mini ones. A skewer inserted into the center of the cakes will come out clean/slightly moist when they are ready.
9. Allow to cool completely before frosting with the cream cheese mixture.

Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting

1. In a small, microwave safe bowl melt the white chocolate on MEDIUM power for 30 seconds. Stir the chocolate and repeat this until the chocolate is melted.
2. In a large bowl, add the Cream Cheese, Butter and Thickened Cream. Beat the mixture using an electric beater until well combined.
3. Mix in the melted white chocolate and lemon essence.
4. *Slowly* beat in the icing sugar/mixture (about half a cup at a time) until the entire mixture forms stiff peaks.
5. Once the cupcakes have cooled, spoon the frosting into a piping bag with a large star attachment and pipe the frosting generously onto the cupcakes. If you don’t have a piping kit, use a spatula to evenly cover frosting on the cakes.

Garnish

I was feeling particularly creative with the first batch of these so I decided to use royal icing to create edible sugar carrots. I ended up running out of icing sugar so mine ended up being too runny and looking like mini ice cream cones! To create royal icing simply combine the white of one large egg with three cups of icing sugar/mixture. Separate the mixture into two bowls and add a few drops of food colouring to create one orange and one green batch of icing. Use a piping bag on to grease paper to create the carrot bodies with orange icing then their tops with green. Allow to dry for a few hours before decorating the cupcakes.

For the second batch I was less patient and used Pecan nut halves on top of the frosting

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