Cupcakes Delicious

This weekend I made a very easy and tasty cupcake recipe for carrot cupcakes from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes book. Filled with healthier ingredients like carrots and raisins, these cupcakes without the frosting could very well be called muffins instead. The simple recipe follows:

Mix in large bowl:
1 pound carrots, grated*
3 eggs
1/3 cup buttermilk
2 cups sugar
1 vanilla bean split lengthwise with seeds scraped for use
1/2 cup raisins

Mix in separate bowl:
3 cups flour
1 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. baking powder
2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. ginger
1/8 cloves (ground or chopped)

Fold the dry ingredients into the carrot mixture. When mixed, line cupcake tins and fill each 3/4 full. Bake at 325 degrees for 23-28 minutes, turning the cupcakes midway through baking.


Frosting:
2 sticks butter
12 oz. cream cheese
1 lb. confectioners sugar**
3/4 tsp. vanilla


Cream butter and cream cheese with an electric mixer. After blended, add sugar 1/2 cup at a time while continuing to blend the butter and cheese. Add vanilla and mix well.

Ta Da!

Frosting is easier with a spatula knife thingy like this one.

Here's a picture of me grating carrots. This was the most time intensive part of the recipe.

*I highly recommend using a microplane instead of a grater. It will cut your grating time in half.
**The recipe does not call for the powder sugar to be sifted, but it would be a good idea. I found that the sugar was quite lumpy when blended with the butter and cream cheese. Sifting would eliminate this problem.