Last week I told you that I would be making Ina Garten's Carrot Cake Cupcakes for the Fourth of July weekend and for my mother's birthday. I did, indeed, make those cupcakes. We packed the car early on Friday morning with gifts and food and a table I was giving to my sister and ourselves and Baxter and we set off for Midlothian, VA. About an hour before we arrived, I turned to look in the back to see where the cupcakes were. The answer was "no where." I left them on the kitchen counter!! Needless to say, this was not a happy time. Fortunately my sister had a freshly made banana bread, which was delicious. So we substituted that for the cupcakes.
To get things started, here is a picture of one of those cupcakes. I cannot tell you how incredibly delicious they are and I am going to share with you just how to make them. Ina, if you are reading, we love your Carrot Cake Cupcake recipe with Cream Cheese Frosting. We bow down to you in deference. So here goes.
I decided to make the cream cheese frosting first. The ingredients are few so I did this quickly and set is aside. The ingredient list for the frosting is:
Cream Cheese. Use Philadelphia Original.
Unsalted Butter.
Pure Vanilla Extract.
Confectioner's sugar.
Place the cream cheese (at room temperature), butter (at room temperature), and vanilla in a bowl and mix until incorporated. Add the sugar and beat until smooth. It should be smooth and stiff as in the picture above. I used my hand mixer. You could use your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment.
One teaspoon pure vanilla extract.
Beat all of these ingredients together in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment.
Add four extra-large eggs. Add these one at a time to the mixture until you end up with this beautiful golden batter.
You see that I am using my hand mixer, but a stand mixer with the paddle attachment can be used.
In a separate bowl, sift together two cups all-purpose flour with two teaspoons ground cinnamon, two teaspoons baking soda and one and one half teaspoons kosher salt.
This is what it will look like after you have sifted all these ingredients together.
Add half the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix.
Have three cups of grated carrots ready.
Add the three cups of grated carrots and one cup of raisins to the remaining flour.
Next, add one cup chopped walnuts to the carrot, raisin and flour mixture.
Mix well.
Then add to the batter. Mix until just combined.
Here is the batter ready to spoon into the baking cups.
The first batch, I used these Wilton baking cups with fluted edges. I thought these would look very nice for a birthday celebration. It did not turn out quite like I expected.
Baking cups in the cupcake tin ready to be filled.
And here they are, filled and ready to go into the oven. The recipe calls for a 350 degree oven for thirty minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Thirty minutes should be enough.
And here they were straight from the oven. The baking cups got a little toasted. I did not particularly like that. It was not the fault of the recipe, but rather a design flaw in the paper baking cups. I will not use these again.
In the end, I frosted them and they looked very nice. And they were delicious. The baking cups were just too much. They overpowered the whole thing.
So, ... I made a second batch using regular, paper baking cups. I filled each cup about three-quarters full.
And this was the result the second time around. Perfection Personified!!!
With a twist of cream cheese frosting on top, these were not only delicious to eat, but visually appealing where the first batch was not so visually appealing because of those horrid baking cups.
Since this is not an original recipe of mine, but is from the Ina Garten collection, I am not going to add it to our library of recipes. I will give you a link so that you can visit Ina's blog and download and print the recipe directly.
That link is http://www.barefootcontessa.com/recipes.aspx?RecipeID=652&S=0.
I strongly recommend you give this recipe a try. These really are the most extraordinary cupcakes I've ever had. Enjoy!!
To get things started, here is a picture of one of those cupcakes. I cannot tell you how incredibly delicious they are and I am going to share with you just how to make them. Ina, if you are reading, we love your Carrot Cake Cupcake recipe with Cream Cheese Frosting. We bow down to you in deference. So here goes.
I decided to make the cream cheese frosting first. The ingredients are few so I did this quickly and set is aside. The ingredient list for the frosting is:
Cream Cheese. Use Philadelphia Original.
Unsalted Butter.
Pure Vanilla Extract.
Confectioner's sugar.
Place the cream cheese (at room temperature), butter (at room temperature), and vanilla in a bowl and mix until incorporated. Add the sugar and beat until smooth. It should be smooth and stiff as in the picture above. I used my hand mixer. You could use your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment.
Now to the cupcakes.
We start with two cups sugar.
1-1/3 cups vegetable oil.
One teaspoon pure vanilla extract.
Beat all of these ingredients together in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment.
You see that I am using my hand mixer, but a stand mixer with the paddle attachment can be used.
In a separate bowl, sift together two cups all-purpose flour with two teaspoons ground cinnamon, two teaspoons baking soda and one and one half teaspoons kosher salt.
This is what it will look like after you have sifted all these ingredients together.
Add half the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix.
Have three cups of grated carrots ready.
Add the three cups of grated carrots and one cup of raisins to the remaining flour.
Next, add one cup chopped walnuts to the carrot, raisin and flour mixture.
Mix well.
Then add to the batter. Mix until just combined.
Here is the batter ready to spoon into the baking cups.
The first batch, I used these Wilton baking cups with fluted edges. I thought these would look very nice for a birthday celebration. It did not turn out quite like I expected.
Baking cups in the cupcake tin ready to be filled.
And here they are, filled and ready to go into the oven. The recipe calls for a 350 degree oven for thirty minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Thirty minutes should be enough.
And here they were straight from the oven. The baking cups got a little toasted. I did not particularly like that. It was not the fault of the recipe, but rather a design flaw in the paper baking cups. I will not use these again.
In the end, I frosted them and they looked very nice. And they were delicious. The baking cups were just too much. They overpowered the whole thing.
So, ... I made a second batch using regular, paper baking cups. I filled each cup about three-quarters full.
And this was the result the second time around. Perfection Personified!!!
Since this is not an original recipe of mine, but is from the Ina Garten collection, I am not going to add it to our library of recipes. I will give you a link so that you can visit Ina's blog and download and print the recipe directly.
That link is http://www.barefootcontessa.com/recipes.aspx?RecipeID=652&S=0.
I strongly recommend you give this recipe a try. These really are the most extraordinary cupcakes I've ever had. Enjoy!!
