Lemon Frosted Carrot Cupcakes

Ingredients

Carrot Cupcakes
200 grams of brown sugar
1 teaspoon of homemade vanilla sugar
200 millilitres of sunflower oil
2 eggs
200 grams of plain flour
1/2 teaspoon of baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
pinch of salt
1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon
200 grams grated carrot
50 grams of almonds\walnuts

Lemon Frosting
Lemon juice
200 grams of Philadelphia or other cream cheese
1 teaspoon of homemade vanilla sugar*
Icing sugar (powdered sugar)

Making Lemon Frosted Carrot Cupcakes

Set your oven to 170 degrees Celsius. Peel the carrots and grate them, put them aside. Crack the eggs in a big bowl and add sugar, vanilla sugar and sunflower oil. Beat with a wooden spoon until the mass swells up. Measure out your dry ingredients (flour, baking powder and soda, salt and vanilla sugar) and sift them in. Fold the flour mix into the egg batter until you have a smooth dough. Roughly chop the almonds and add to the dough together with the grated carrots. Take out a muffin tray (with room for 12) and cover it with paper muffin forms. Distribute the dough evenly into the forms, using two spoons. Put the muffin tray in the middle of the oven and leave to bake for 25-30 minutes. The muffins are done when they have a golden brown colour and you can press down the middle and have it bouncing back. Take the muffin tray out and leave the muffins to cool in the tray for five minute. When the five minutes are up you need to take them out of the form and have them rest on a baking grid. When the muffins have cooled down you can start on your icing. If you are not too fond of icing don’t despair, they taste brilliant without it.

Now the reason I haven’t specified the amount of lemon juice and icing sugar is that I am not quite sure how much I added. I also think it’s very individual how sugary or lemony the icing should be. Just experiment adding some of each and having a taste. Keep in mind that the mix shouldn’t be to runny if you want to decorate the muffins using a decoration bag, store-bought or homemade.

Nutty Brownie Cupcakes

Ingredients

255 grams of plain flour
65 grams of cocoa powder
300 grams of sugar
1/2 tea-spoon of baking soda
2 tea-spoons of baking powder
1/4 tea-spoon of salt
2,5 decilitres of milk
1 egg
2 table-spoons of sunflower oil
1 – 2 teaspoons of homemade vanilla sugar
150 grams of dark chocolate (60%)
90 grams of walnuts

Making Nutty Chocolate Cupcakes

Preheat the oven to 175 degrees Celsius. Add sugar and eggs to a baking bowl and whisk together. Whisk in oil and milk. Sift in flour, cocoa, baking powder, vanilla sugar, baking soda and salt, and fold in a little at a time. Coarsely chop dark chocolate and walnuts and add to the dough. Add paper or silicon muffin cups to a cupcake tray. If you don’t have a tray it doesn’t matter, but they might lose some of the shape. Fill the cups 3/4 of the way and bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes. If you have a cake pin you can test one to see if they are ready after 20 minutes. It always depends on the oven. You can also see if they are done by pushing down on the top of the cupcake, if it bounces back it is ready.

Inspired by Chacha