Carrot Cupcakes

My son turned one year old on Tuesday.  He is growing up fast! My husband and I decided to bake him cupcakes. This was the first sweet that he has eaten in his one year of life. I decided that carrot cupcakes sounded yummy and would still provide him with some nutrition to offset the sweet.

This recipe from Cooking Light is for the cupcakes and the frosting but due to time constraints we only made the cupcakes, and then cheated and bought the icing. Hopefully next time we have more time to do both from scratch. All I can say is I am still learning how to manage my time, even after a year. I think as they get older it actually gets harder since they are constantly on the move.

Disclaimer: These photos are not the best…sorry! I see so many beautiful pictures of cupcakes on the web and in cookbooks and I clearly haven’t figured out how to make the frosting look beautiful. Also, my son got a hold of my really nice Nikon camera and broke it. My fault for leaving it out in the open and definitely a lesson learned. Anyways, bear with me on these pictures. I promise they are delicious and very easy to make. As you can see Will sure loved them!

Carrot Cupcakes

Ingredients for Cupcakes

2/3 cup granulated sugar

3 tablespoons vegetable oil

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 large egg

1 cup finely shredded carrot

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/8 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 350°.
2. To prepare cupcakes, beat first 4 ingredients at medium speed of a mixer until well-blended. Add carrot; beat well. Lightly spoon flour into a dry measuring cup; level with a knife. Combine flour and next 5 ingredients (flour through nutmeg) in a bowl, stirring well. Add flour mixture to sugar mixture; beat well.
3. Spoon batter into 12 muffin cups lined with paper liners. Bake at 350° for 20 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pan 5 minutes on a wire rack; remove from pan. Cool completely on wire rack.
4. Spread frosting over cupcakes.

Ready for the frosting…

Perfection!

Adapted from Cooking Light: Carrot Cupcake

Other recipes using carrot from around the web:

Apple Carrot Cupcake: Simply Recipes

Carrot Salad with Honey Lemon Dressing: Eating Well

Ginger-Orange Glazed Carrots: FatFree Vegan Kitchen

Roasted Chicken and Carrots with Olives and Lemons: Real Simple

Carrot Risotto: Cubemarketplace.com