Mini Carrot & Ginger Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Icing

 

I don't really think that I have a sweet tooth. Yes, I do occasionally crave a piece of dark chocolate or a homemade sweet, but in most cases, I would choose savory over sweet anyday.

The exception to this seems to be carrot cake. For a cake filled with vegetables, carrot cake is pretty delicious and sweet. In fact, I love it so much that I wanted my wedding cake to be carrot cake (over-ruled by Chocolate-Raspberry....).

Carrot cake is deliciously moist, and of course, topping it with sweet, velvety cream cheese icing doesn't hurt!

Mini Carrot & Ginger Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Icing

Makes 60 Mini Cupcakes

For the Cupcakes

2 cups Flour

2 tsp Baking Powder

2 tsp Cinnamon

1 tsp Baking Soda

3/4 tsp Salt

1/2 tsp Ground Nutmeg

3/4 cup Brown Sugar

3/4 cup White Sugar

3 Large Eggs

3/4 cup Vegetable Oil

1 tsp Vanilla

1 tsp Fresh Ginger, grated

2 cups Grated Carrots

1 cup Canned Crushed Pineapple, drained

2/3 cup Chopped Walnuts

For the Icing

1 cup Cream Cheese, room temperature

1/4 cup Butter, room temperature

1/2 tsp Vanilla

2 3/4 cup Icing Sugar

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line mini muffin tins.

In a small bowl, mix together flour, baking powder, cinnamon, baking soda, salt and nutmeg. Set aside.

In a large bowl, beat the white and brown sugar, eggs, oil, vanilla and ginger. Add the flour mixture and stir until just combined. Stir in the carrots, pineapple, and walnuts.

Spoon the mixture into the muffin cups until 2/3 full. Bake for 11-13 minutes until a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean. Cool completely on a wire rack.

To make the icing, beat the butter, cream cheese and vanilla in a bowl until completely smooth. Add the icing sugar, half a cup at a time until the icing is smooth. At this point, you can spread onto the cooled cupcakes or you can place in the fridge and cool for 1-2 hours and pipe the icing onto the cupcakes.