It did bring me back to a conversation I had last night with my baby sister. When I say baby I mean she IS the baby of the family. I happened to have a pink lemonade cupcake left over and gave it to her. She mentioned she's cheating on me by having cupcakes made by someone else. *snickers* She had a cinnamon french toast and bacon cupcake with a maple butter cream frosting. I don't know if she told me that the cupcake was dry so as not to hurt my feelings or not. But as I sit here thinking I can do something better. Then I thought ... what brings hubby comfort. Seeing as he's the only one working right now, I try to cater to him a little bit more. So I KNOW I wanted to do something with a "maple frosting" but wasn't sure what to go with it. So I started looking and found the ABSOLUTE perfect comfort for hubby.
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| Carrot Cupcakes with a maple cream cheese frosting! |
Hubby LOVES carrot cake! It's one of those cakes that he will always ask for .... always try to pick up at the store. It's his comfort cake. Well at least it always seems to be. *smiles* So that's the cake to make with the maple frosting. But not just maple frosting ... but maple cream cheese frosting. With tweaks of course. It wouldn't be something I made if it wasn't tweaked.
Carrot Cupcake Recipe
2 Cups All Purpose Flour
2 Teaspoon Baking Soda
1 Teaspoon Salt
2 Teaspoon Cinnamon
1/2 Teaspoon Nutmeg (I only use fresh grated nutmeg.)
1 Teaspoon Ground Ginger
1/4 Teaspoon Allspice
1 Cup White Sugar
1 Cup Brown Sugar (I used light this time.)
1 1/4 Cup Canola Oil
4 Large Room Temperature Eggs
1 Teaspoon Vanilla
3 Cups Grated Carrots (About 4 - 5 medium)
1/2 Cup Chopped Walnuts (Optional)
1/2 Cup Sunflower Seeds (Optional - I used dry roasted for a bite of salt with the sweet of the cake.)
1/2 Cup Raisins (Optional)
Preheat oven to 350. Line muffin tin with liners. Makes 24 regular or 12 - 14 large.
Sift together flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and allspice in a medium bowl.
Whisk sugar and oil in large bowl until well blended.
Whisk eggs in 1 at a time until each one is blended.
Ad flour mixture into wet mixture and stir/whisk until blended.
Fold in carrots, nuts, and raisins.
Fill cup 2/3 the way and bake. For regular 14 - 18 minutes for jumbo/large 20 -28 minutes or until toothpick inserted comes out clean.
Let cool about 5 minutes before removing and placing on baking rack.
Maple Cream Cheese Frosting
1 8oz Room Temperature Cream Cheese
1 8oz Room Temperature Mascarpone
1 Stick Unsalted, Room Temperature Butter
2 Cups Powdered Sugar, Sifted
1/4 Cup Pure Maple Syrup
Cream cream cheese, mascarpone, and butter until smooth.
Add maple syrup and beat until smooth and blended.
Add sifted powdered sugar and beat until well blended. If texture is not to your liking you can add additional powdered sugar until your satisfied.
Refrigerate for 15 - 20 minutes until frosting sets up. If frosting is refrigerated for longer than 20 minutes let frosting loosen up a little until it will be easy to frost with.
I shared these with my family. I won't expect a good comment from my Dad as I forgot he doesn't like raisins. *giggles* Mom and younger brother LOVED them. "Definite keeper!" Older brother's comment "Primo! And I don't like carrot cake!" Younger sister ... the one you had the really dry cupcake .... this is good .... REALLY good! Hubby .... YUM! And hmmmm ... and oh yeah! Don't think there are any better words to hear.
Play with the ingredients as much as you want. If you don't like a lot of cinnamon you can cut it down. You can use all cream cheese instead of mixing but I always have mascarpone in my fridge and it adds a different taste. Don't use maple FLAVORED syrup. It is NOT the same thing. Use all walnuts, don't use raisins. But whatever you do, try these. They are yummy, moist, and not overly sweet. But remember whatever changes you make ... the best ingredient is you .... Enjoy!!!!
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