I decided upon making carrot cupcakes for Easter because for some reason, carrots are popular. I have a limited taste understanding of carrot cakes/cupcakes, only having one of both fairly recently. So, you can imagine that I was a bit daunted by this recipe from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes cookbook.
My ingredients were easy to measure out. Nothing too crazy. I bought pre-shredded carrots and ended up giving them a bit of a chop in the food processor. Not sure if that's a normal thing, but hey, this was my first try with this and I didn't want huge strings of carrots.
It was a bit odd to mix carrots with other ingredients. I suppose it is similar to working with pumpkin, but I still had a hard time with it. However, I was able to combine all of my cupcake ingredients by hand. Power to manual labor. These also were put into lined muffin pans which allows for easy cleanup.
Twenty-five minutes later, I pulled these good looking cupcakes out of the oven. They smelled delightful! I tried a plain cupcake because the cookbook said they make a good snack when eaten this way. It tasted good, but it seemed more like a muffin without frosting.
That realization was my cue to start on my cream cheese frosting. I had no idea that this popular frosting was so easy to make. Those four ingredients are all you need! I never would've guessed. My sister said that it was my best frosting yet. (WIN!) I'm sure that you notice our Kitchen-Aid mixer had to be used for this step.
And there you have the iced cupcakes. This is definitely a great cupcake to make. Not too sweet and very light and moist. Shouldn't be too much to clean either. I suggest giving it a try.
For perhaps the first day since spring began, it is actually a nice "spring-ish" day. Have you completed your big spring cleaning, Reader? I'm still working on that (slowly), but it's coming along. I think that when the weather is warm, I enjoy eating more than ever. So, I had a nice excuse to bake up some delicious. If you worked with me, you'd be eating some chocolate fudge cake pops right about now.
Since you do not work with me, I wanted to share this with you so you can surprise your own coworkers. I've made cake pops before (wow, they looked so lumpy), but I think my skills have somewhat improved. Due to the recent "cake pop-ularity," companies are starting to create items for them. Wilton made the carriers (which I decked out using Hallmark's adhesive ribbon available in stores) and they also have a stand for decorating cake pops (but make sure you use styrofoam to dry your pops!). Actually, if you search their site, you'll come across a lot of great supplies.
