This recipe is a little off season at the moment. It’s best made when you find Delhi carrots in the markets and they’re usually a winter (or early year) phenomenon. Delhi carrots (the really red ones) lend themselves to a far more vividly orange cupcake than the regular orange carrots.
The special thing about carrot cupcakes (and cakes) is the soft fluffiness of its texture. The grated carrot results in a consistency that’s easy to pull apart with your fingertips and break into little bite size pieces. If you’re the sort of greedyguts who likes devouring their cupcakes whole, it’d work well with your way of doing things too, because it’d just collapse and melt in your mouth in a carroty, sweet mass. Speaking of sweet, I use a lesser amount of sugar in this recipe, since Delhi carrots tend to be sweeter than regular ones.
This recipe was adapted from Smitten Kitchen’s version of the same.
The Recipe
Ingredients
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
½ teaspoon ground ginger
1 cup sugar
150ml canola oil
2 large eggs
1½ cups peeled, grated Delhi carrots
½ cups coarsely chopped walnuts (optional)
¼ cup raisins (optional)
Creamcheese frosting
Method
- Grate the carrots (with long strokes, so you get distinct shards of carrot and not a pulp).
- Whisk the flour, baking soda, salt cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger in a bowl.
- Blend the sugar with the oil and then add the eggs one by one. Add the flour mixture to this and stir.
- Add the grated carrots and raisins.
- Fill each cupcake mould about ¾th full and bake for about 14-18 minutes. Test with a cake tester or knife by giving it a poke (if it comes out clean, it’s done..if batters sticks to it when it comes out, let it bake some more).
- To make the frosting, whisk all the ingredients together till it’s fluffy. Transfer to a piping bag and pipe the frosting onto the (cooled) cupcakes.
