Carrot Cupcakes with White Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting

I may earn commissions for purchases made through links on this post.

Carrot Cupcakes with White Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting are a great alternative to carrot cake. Think of it as portion control! These are really moist and packed with spices. The frosting is unbelievable.

CARROT CUPCAKES

Today was April Fool’s which means all day I was on edge waiting for someone to prank me. My kids, learning from the best, spent the whole day pranking each other and ganging up on me. It stayed tit-for-tat the whole day.

• They tee-peed my room last night. I wrote on their faces with washable marker while they were sleeping.
• They booby-trapped my bathroom. I filled their post-dinner Oreos with toothpaste.
• They hid a picture of a zombie on my toilet. I put salt in their toothbrushes.

We called a truce at bedtime but I’m still sleeping with one eye open tonight just in case.

Every year I do the SuperGlue-quarters-to-the-sidewalk prank. It was an epic fail because just as I walked into my house I looked out my window and saw my neighbor walk by and casually pick up the quarters. He realized something was up because I saw him feverishly wiping his hands (slimed with wet SuperGlue).

These Carrot Cake Cupcakes are pretty amazing. That’s coming from a girl who considers carrot cake somewhat farther down on the totem pole to anything with chocolate in it. The cupcakes aren’t super puffy – more like a nice muffin texture, but they represent in taste and moistness. If you have a food processor it makes shredding carrots a breeze. Otherwise – I sick my husband on the carrot shredding duty.

The frosting is one of the best frostings I’ve ever had. It’s really similar to my go-to cream cheese frosting but has a tiny bit of orange extract that compliments the cupcakes so much. I tried it first by leaving it out because I don’t want you all to have to buy weird ingredients for just this.

They were good without it but then I tried it with the orange extract and it was like a totally different cupcake. It gives it that little je ne sais quoi. Bam! Four years of studying French and that’s all I can remember.

My kids ate these, nuts and all.

OTHER CUPCAKE RECIPES

• Funfetti Cupcakes
• Reese’s Peanut Butter Cupcakes
• Strawberry Milkshake Cupcakes
• Rainbow Cupcakes
• Pineapple Upside Down Cupcakes
• Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cupcakes

Carrot Cupcakes with White Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting

4.34 from 6 votes

These Carrot Cupcakes with White Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting are a great alternative to carrot cake. Think of it as portion control!

Print Pin Rate

Prep Time: 10 minutes mins

Cook Time: 20 minutes mins

Total Time: 30 minutes mins

Servings: 18 cupcakes

Ingredients

Cream Cheese Icing:

• 1 ounce white chocolate, (like Bakers)
• 4 ounces cream cheese, softened
• 1/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/4 teaspoon orange extract
• 2 cups powdered sugar
• 1 tablespoon heavy cream

Carrot Cupcakes:

• 2 eggs, lightly beaten
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 cups shredded carrots, (shred easily with a food processor or by hand)
• 1/2 cup crushed pineapple
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1 cup chopped walnuts

Instructions

 

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) and line 18 muffin cups with paper liners.
• In small microwave safe bowl, heat white chocolate in small intervals in the microwave stirring until melted. Cool to room temperature.
• In a bowl, beat together the cream cheese and butter until smooth. Mix in white chocolate, 1/2 teaspoon vanilla, and orange extract. Gradually beat in the powdered sugar. Mix in the heavy cream.
• For the cupcakes: Beat together the eggs, white sugar, and brown sugar in a bowl, and mix in the oil and vanilla. Fold in the carrots and crushed pineapple. In a separate bowl, mix the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger. Mix flour mixture into the carrot mixture until evenly moist. Fold in 1/2 cup walnuts saving the remaining walnuts for topping. Fill muffin cups almost to the top.
• Bake 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean. Do not overbake. Cool completely on wire racks.
• Frost cooled cupcakes with frosting. For fancy decorating fill a re-sealable plastic bag with the frosting and snip off the corner to pipe it on. Or for even fancier decorating, use a Wilton 2D tip to pipe on the frosting. Sprinkle with remaining walnuts.

Notes

Source: slightly adapted from Allrecipes - decreased the sugar and halved the frosting.

Cuisine: American

Course: Dessert

Author: Christy Denney

Carrot Cake

Carrot Cake Cookies

Christy Denney

Christy is the voice behind The Girl Who Who Ate Everything! She is no stranger to making meals that kids and adults will love. She grew up in Mesa, Arizona as the youngest of ten kids. She can always be found in her kitchen with music playing and cooking with her kids. She published her first cookbook in 2014. She loves party food that gets the conversations going!

See Full Bio