Posts Tagged ‘easter’

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Ah, Easter – the time for chocolate, bunnies, coloured eggs, and zombies. Now, every year for Easter – on Sunday – my whole family gets together (cousins, aunts, and uncles included) for a big ol’ fashioned dinner party. Usually there’s ham or lamb (this year it was lamb), lots of veggies, wine, and an array of dessert. One year, I brought really cute Easter cupcakes- and, well, ever since my affinity for cupcakes has grown, and with it, my family’s expectations that Lauren+Cupcakes are a package deal. This year, I decided to go “back to basics” and make a traditional carrot (cup)cake to bring instead of my usual cheat-with-a-box-mix-and-make-look-pretty strategy, but of course there had to be a Lauren twist… so I baked the traditional cream cheese icing on the inside (thanks for the idea, Pinterest) and threw a coconut buttercream icing on top.

Carrot Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Filling and Coconut Buttercream Icing

Super delish.

Carrot Cupcakes [Adapted from “Sam’s Famous Carrot Cake” on allrecipes.com]
Bake @ 350° for 20 minutes | makes 30 cupcakes

• 2 cups shredded carrots
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3 eggs
• 3/4 cup buttermilk**
• 3/4 cup applesauce
• 1 tbsp oil
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 cup flaked coconut
• 1 cup chopped walnuts
• 1 cup crushed pineapple (with juice)
• 1 cup raisins

**If you don’t have buttermilk on hand (I never do, nor do I buy it especially for recipes!) use this substitute: 1 tbsp lemon juice + 1 cup skim milk. Add the lemon juice to a measuring cup, and fill with milk to the 1 cup mark. Let sit for 5 minutes – volia! Buttermilk substitute. Use the amount the recipe calls for.

Shredded carrots

Peel 2-3 large carrots, and shred them until you have two cups (medium to tightly packed). Set aside. In a large bowl, mix flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon using a fork. If you’re using bulk items, be sure to sift them first. Set aside.

Mixing the dry ingredients

In another bowl, combine the eggs, buttermilk, applesauce, oil, sugar, and vanilla. Using a mixer, mix well. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredient bowl, and mix well. Measure out your add-ins (in this case, coconut flakes, pineapple, raisins, and walnuts). If you have whole or half walnuts like I did, you’ll need to crush them down to a smaller size – I put them in a ziplock bag and used a hammer to crush them into smaller pieces. Totally therapeutic, I might add.

The hammer is my secret weapon in the kitchen. Seriously, I use it so often!

Add the extras into the batter, one at a time, folding them in using a large wooden spoon or spatula as you go. Set the batter aside, and prepare your filling.

Cream Cheese Filling

• 1 (8-ounce package) light cream cheese (room temperature)
• 1/4 cup white (granulated) sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Put the cream cheese, sugar, and vanilla extract into a mixing bowl, and using your hand mixer or KitchenAid, thoroughly mix the ingredients (until creamy). Line your cupcake pan, and fill 1/3 of the way with carrot cake batter. I used an icecream scoop, and put one small-ish scoop into each cup. Next, put a small scoop (about 1/2 a tbsp) of the filling into each cup.

Yup, the cream cheese is baked right into the middle

Finally, fill the cup the rest of the way to 2/3 full (about 1/2-3/4 an ice cream scoop) by dropping the cake batter on top of the filling. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out of the batter clean. If you stick it through the filling part, it will come out with gooey filling on it – that’s totally OK as long as the cake batter is baked. While they’re baking, prepare your icing!

Coconut Buttercream Icing [Adapted from my favourite Wilton Buttercream Icing Recipe]

• 4 cups icing sugar
• 1.5 cups shortening
• 1/2 cup coconut milk
• 2 tbsp coconut flakes

Remove the cupcakes from the oven and let cool. Once they’re cooled, take them out and ice them anyway you want. I used a Wilton #12 Round Tip for the white – gently pressing down while swirling the icing across the cupcake to give it a flatter look. Next, I sprinkled coconut flakes on the icing. I then used the #103 Petal Tip for the carrot, starting with the thick end of the tip to make the thick end of the carrot and pulling across the cupcake while reducing pressure. Once the icing had sat for about 5 minutes, I used a knife to mark lines into the carrots. Finally, I used the #3 Round Tip to make the green tops of the carrots.

Surprise!

I have to say, these turned out amazing and were a huge hit at Easter (as were the leftovers at work on Monday!). The recipe does make a TON of cupcakes – even after taking them to Easter dinner with my family of 11 and pawning a bunch off on them post-meal, I had a number leftover (14!) so I kept a few for The Boy and I, then took the rest to my coworkers. Office favourite this week, right here. ;)

Curious about the nutritional info per cupcake? Click here!