cutie-patootie carrot cupcakes

I keep getting lucky on my pairings for Taste & Create. This time, Version 8.0, I was partnered with Jescel at Spice of Life, a delightful blog chock-full of yummy recipes. It didn’t take me long to settle on a recipe, however--I saw the words "carrot cake" and knew that’s what I had to make (and devour).



Carrot cake is one of my favorite desserts, right up there with apple pie a la mode, strawberry shortcake, and anything combining mint and chocolate. I have at least 20 renditions of carrot cake in my abyss of saved recipes--I'm always on the hunt for the best recipe ever. Some have coconut, some have pineapple, some have cranberries, some have nuts. Most have cream cheese icing, which I’ve always considered a necessary component of the cake. In fact, it's probably the main reason I'm such a fan of carrot cake.


Jescel’s recipe for Carrot Cake in a Cup was straightforward and looked like a winner. That being said, I made two major changes and a small tweak. (Is that allowed? I'm such a rebel.) One change reveals my sloth-like tendencies and the other reflects my aversion to messes.

Change #1: Instead of grating carrots, I opted to use some carrot baby food. You tend to have a plethora of such things lying around when you work for a baby food company. That, coupled with the fact that I’m a lazy bum, was why I made this alteration.

Change #2: Following the success of the black-bottom cupcakes I made last week, I decided to skip the icing (gasp! shudder! sob!) and try the same method out on these. I was able to sacrifice the icing because I knew these babies would be traveling to work with me and thought they'd be easier to transport and eat this way. Hey, I'm just thinking about the well-being of my co-workers, that's all. :)

Small tweak: I was nut-less. There wasn't a walnut, pecan, cashew, or pistachio to be found in my apartment, so sadly, I was forced to leave them out. So much for a nice crunch.


Results: Using baby food instead of grated carrots obviously made the cake much more moist, bordering on too moist. If I take the lazy route again (and let's be honest, I probably will), I’ll reduce the amount of baby food and use two 4-oz jars instead of three. They still tasted delicious (and I do mean delicious), but they were just a little too sticky. I sort of missed the flecks of grated carrot throughout the cake and was a little put off by the neon orange-ness created by the pureed carrots. Eh, that's a small price to pay for the time and knuckle-skin that I saved. :)

The plop of cream cheese on top was a stroke of genius, if I do say so myself. It’s a wonderful alternative to cream cheese icing (although clearly not as scrumptious--let's not kid ourselves here). Orange-bottom cupcakes, anyone?

(massacre)(shortly before it went in my belly)

Thanks, Jescel, for feeding my need for carrot cake!