Carrot Cake Easter Cupcakes (with Cream Cheese Frosting)

I'm not a baker by any means. But there's something about spring and Easter that just makes me want to get creative. I have a recipe for carrot cake that I love - I think it's the pineapple that really makes it - and nothing is better than cream cheese frosting.

For the cupcakes:

1 cup pastry flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice*
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 large egg
3/4 cup grated carrots
1/2 cup crushed pineapple with juice

Pumpkin Pie Spice:
(This will give you more than enough spice)

1/2 tbs cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp allspice


For the frosting:

1/2 cup of cream cheese - softened
1 cup of icing sugar (i.e.confectioners' sugar)
butter
food colouring
piping bag and tips (or plastic sandwich bags if you're like me)

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Preheat the oven to 300-325 degrees depending on your oven. Cupcakes cook faster than cake and you don't want to dry them out.

Mix the dry ingredients together in one bowl.  In a separate bowl, mix the sugar, oil, and egg, stirring well. Add the carrots and pineapple, stirring again. You could add coconut or chopped nuts as well at this point. Slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture a little at a time, blending as you go.

Spoon the batter into greased cupcake tins, filling them about half full. I found that the batter rises quite a bit so don't overfill them. Bake for 20 minutes or until the tops are golden brown.

While the cupcakes are baking you can prepare the frosting. Cream the sugar and cream cheese together until smooth. If you would like the frosting a little softer add butter a little at a time to get the consistency you like. I added my butter (about 1/4 cup) at the start and didn't like how soft/runny the icing was so I suggest testing as you go. If you want stiffer icing, add more icing sugar.

Divide your icing into small containers and dye each with the food colouring of your choice. For orange you will need just one drop of red but several drops of yellow. That red is strong stuff!

I don't have a piping bag so I just used several small sandwich bags with the corners snipped off instead. Spoon in some icing and squeeze it down to the corner you've snipped. Then use your imagination for the decorations!

Here is my first cupcake. I liked the look of the carrot so much that I made all the small ones the same. Carrot cake has to have carrots on top.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I attempted some other styles that are not quite as pretty. I think the baby chick and the rabbit look like they're wearing sunglasses, don't you? The rabbit ears are made from pieces of paper with some pink icing applied.

They're not professional looking - I get it. But I had a lot of fun. And they were fun to eat too! The pineapple makes a huge difference to the moistness and flavour. You know, the more I look at them, the cuter I think they are. Well done, me.

I think I'm going to keep working on this decorating thing. I'll give you an update when my bakery is opening.