SinFoodie : For the love of Cooking: February 2012

I haven't blogged in a month and I haven't baked anything too since Christmas. I had made these Carrot Cupcakes during Christmas for my husband's colleagues and have been procrastinating since then to blog about it. The cupcakes turned out delicious and the feedback was great. Since I got to taste only a bite of it, I think maybe I should bake them again till the fresh red carrots are in market.
The cupcake recipe is from here and for the frosting I have modified the recipe which I used for Red Velvet Cupcake , by excluding White Chocolate. It tastes equally good. I remember, I had to use white chocolate then,as the cream cheese tasted sour, so white chocolate balanced the taste. The brand was different and now I stick to Philadelphia Cream cheese, which doesn't have a sour taste.
Ingredients
Makes 24 cupcakes
For Cupcake
2 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon ground ginger [ I didn't use it]
2 cups sugar
1 1/4 cups canola oil
4 large eggs
3 cups grated peeled carrots
1 cups coarsely chopped walnuts (optional)
1/2 cup raisins (optional)

For Cream Cheese Frosting

4 oz cream cheese

2 1/2 tbsp butter

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 1/4 cup icing sugar sifted

Preparation

For the Cupcake

Preheat oven to 350 F/177C. Line 24 cupcake molds with paper liners, or butter and flour them.
Whisk flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger in medium bowl to blend.
Whisk sugar and oil in large bowl until well blended.
Whisk in eggs 1 at a time.
Add flour mixture and stir until blended.
Stir in carrots, walnuts and raisins, if using them.
Divide batter among cupcake molds, filling 3/4 of each.
Bake cupcakes 14 to 18 minutes, or until a tester inserted into the center of one comes out clean. Let cool in pan for five minutes or so, then transfer cakes to a cooling rack.
Let cool completely before icing them.