Carrot Cake Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

Carrot cake cupcakes are the whole carrot cake experience, the warm spice, the tender oil-based crumb and the tangy cream cheese frosting, baked in a muffin tin in twenty-five minutes with no layers to stack and no cake to slice. One bowl for the batter, one for the frosting, and a dozen cupcakes are cooling on the rack an hour after you started.

The recipe is built on oil rather than butter, which is what keeps carrot cake moist for days, and on freshly grated carrots, which bake down into soft orange flecks rather than the woody threads you get from a bag of pre-shredded. The batch in the photographs was baked straight in a greased tin with no paper liners and finished with a soft, spoon-on cream cheese frosting, and both are options I explain below.

Pictured: the cupcakes baked without liners in a greased tin, and the cream cheese frosting spooned on rather than piped, so it settles into a smooth cap. Both are covered under Variations, and liners and a piped swirl work just as well.

What Makes Carrot Cake Cupcakes Moist

Oil. Butter-based cakes firm up as they cool because butter is solid at room temperature; oil stays liquid, so an oil cake is as soft on day three as it was on day one. Carrot cake has always been an oil cake for that reason, and the cupcake version needs it even more, because small cakes have more crust and dry out faster than a big one.

The carrots do the rest. Grated fine, they carry a surprising amount of water into the batter and release it slowly as the cupcakes bake, which is why a carrot cupcake is moist right through rather than only at the center. Brown sugar helps too, because it holds on to moisture in a way white sugar does not.

Carrots are mostly water and natural sugar, which is why they sweeten as they bake. NDSU Extension notes that a medium carrot carries about nine grams of carbohydrate, most of it sugar, along with the beta-carotene that gives carrot cake cupcakes their color. Two medium carrots make the cup and a quarter this recipe needs.

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Ingredient Notes

• All-purpose flour. One and a quarter cups, spooned into the measuring cup and leveled. Packed flour is the most common reason these come out dry.
• Baking powder and baking soda. Both. The powder does the lifting and the soda reacts with the brown sugar and carrots for a more tender crumb.
• Cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg. A teaspoon, a quarter teaspoon and an eighth. Cinnamon leads, and the other two are what make it taste like carrot cake rather than spice cake.
• Granulated and brown sugar. Half a cup of each. Brown sugar for moisture and a caramel note, white for structure.
• Vegetable oil. Half a cup. Any neutral oil works, and melted coconut oil gives a faint sweetness that suits the spices.
• Eggs. Two, at room temperature so they whisk into the oil rather than fighting it.
• Vanilla extract. One teaspoon.
• Carrots. One and a quarter cups finely grated, from about two medium carrots. Grate them yourself on the small holes of a box grater; bagged shreds are too thick and too dry.
• Walnuts and raisins. Optional, half a cup of chopped nuts and a third of a cup of raisins. The pictured batch left both out for a plain crumb.
• Cream cheese frosting. Four ounces of block cream cheese, a quarter cup of softened butter, a cup and a half of powdered sugar, vanilla and a pinch of salt. Use block cream cheese, not the spreadable tub, or the frosting will be loose.

Liners or No Liners?

Paper liners are the safe choice. They keep the cupcakes from sticking, they make them easy to hand around, and they slow the edges from browning. If you are taking these to a party, use liners.

Baking without liners, which is how the batch in the photos was done, gives a cupcake with a thin, lightly caramelized edge and a slightly flatter, wider top, closer to a bakery muffin in shape. Grease the tin thoroughly with butter or baking spray, dust it with flour, and let the cupcakes cool in the tin for a full ten minutes before you run a thin knife around each one and lift it out. Carrot cake is a tender, moist crumb, so do not rush this part.

How To Make Carrot Cake Cupcakes

First, heat the oven to 350°F and either line a 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners or grease and flour it well. Whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg together in a medium bowl so the spices and leaveners are evenly spread.

Next, in a large bowl, whisk both sugars with the eggs until the mixture is smooth and slightly lighter in color, about a minute. Pour in the oil and the vanilla and whisk again until the batter looks glossy and no oil sits on the surface.

Then add the dry ingredients to the wet and fold with a spatula just until no flour streaks remain. Stop as soon as it comes together; overmixing is what makes carrot cake cupcakes tough and peaked instead of soft and rounded.

After that, fold in the grated carrots, and the walnuts and raisins if you are using them. The batter will be thick and speckled orange.

Finally, divide the batter between the twelve cups, filling each about two-thirds full, and bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until the tops spring back when pressed and a toothpick comes out with a few moist crumbs. Cool in the tin for ten minutes, then move the cupcakes to a rack to cool completely before frosting.

The Cream Cheese Frosting

Beat the cream cheese and butter together until smooth with no lumps, then add the powdered sugar a half cup at a time on low speed. Add the vanilla and salt and beat for a minute more until fluffy. For the soft, spoon-on frosting in the photographs, beat in a teaspoon or two of milk until it drops slowly from the spoon, then spoon a generous tablespoon onto each cooled cupcake and let it settle. For a piped swirl, leave the milk out and chill the frosting for fifteen minutes first.

How To Tell When Carrot Cake Cupcakes Are Done

The toothpick test works, but read it carefully. A toothpick from the center of a done carrot cake cupcake comes out with a few moist crumbs clinging to it, not wet batter and not perfectly clean. Perfectly clean means it has gone a couple of minutes too long, and with a small cake that is the difference between moist and dry.

The better check is the spring-back. Press the top of a cupcake lightly with a fingertip: done cupcakes spring back at once and the top feels set, while underdone ones hold the dent. The tops should be domed and golden with a few cracks, and the edges will have just started to pull away from the tin or the liner.

Start checking at 20 minutes. Ovens vary, dark tins bake faster than light ones, and carrot cake cupcakes go from done to dry quickly because of their size. If in doubt, take them out; the carryover heat in the tin during the ten-minute rest finishes the center.

Make It Ahead

Bake the cupcakes up to two days ahead, cool them completely and keep them unfrosted in an airtight container at room temperature. The crumb actually improves overnight as the carrot moisture spreads through it. Make the frosting up to three days ahead and refrigerate it; let it sit out for thirty minutes and give it a quick beat before using.

Frost on the day you serve them if you can. Frosted carrot cake cupcakes hold well in the fridge, but the frosting looks freshest within a few hours of going on.

Storing Carrot Cake Cupcakes

Because of the cream cheese frosting, frosted cupcakes belong in the fridge, in an airtight container, for up to five days. Take them out twenty minutes before serving so the crumb softens and the frosting loses its chill. Unfrosted cupcakes keep at room temperature in a sealed container for three days.

To freeze, cool unfrosted cupcakes completely, wrap them individually and freeze for up to three months. Thaw at room temperature for an hour and frost as usual. Frosted cupcakes can be frozen too: freeze them uncovered on a tray until the frosting is firm, then wrap. Thaw overnight in the fridge.

Variations and Substitutions

No liners, spoon-on frosting (pictured). Grease and flour the tin instead of lining it, cool the cupcakes in the tin for ten minutes, and loosen the frosting with a teaspoon or two of milk so it can be spooned on and left to settle into a smooth cap. The pictured batch was also made without nuts or raisins.

With nuts and raisins. Fold in half a cup of toasted chopped walnuts or pecans and a third of a cup of raisins with the carrots. Soak the raisins in hot water for ten minutes first so they do not pull moisture from the crumb.

Pineapple and coconut. Add a quarter cup of well-drained crushed pineapple and a quarter cup of shredded coconut for a hummingbird-style cupcake. Reduce the oil by a tablespoon.

Orange. The zest of one orange in the batter and a teaspoon of juice in the frosting brightens the whole thing.

Mini cupcakes. Fill a 24-cup mini tin and bake for 12 to 14 minutes. The recipe makes about 30.

A whole cake. If you want a layer cake instead, the Instant Pot carrot cake is a different method for the same flavors, and a doubled batch of this batter fills two 8-inch rounds baked for about 30 minutes.

What to Serve with Carrot Cake Cupcakes

They are an Easter and spring standard, and they sit happily on a brunch table next to a cinnamon roll coffee cake. For a dessert plate, a spoonful of lightly sweetened whipped cream and a few toasted walnuts on the side is plenty. Coffee or a pot of black tea cuts the sweetness of the frosting better than milk does.

For a mixed cupcake tray, pair them with something that leans the other way, like the smoky-sweet maple bacon cupcakes, so there is a choice on the plate.

Carrot Cake Cupcakes FAQ

More Questions About Cream Cheese Frosting

Carrot cake cupcakes are the version of carrot cake you can make on a weeknight and hand around at a bake sale on Saturday, and they only get better overnight. If a spiced, snackable bake is the mood, the Ho Ho cake is the chocolate answer to the same question.