Birthday Carrot Cupcakes

I couldn't blog about these yesterday since Amy will be seeing them for the first time tonight when we head over to her place to meet up for a belated birthday dinner.

I was a little lazy this year - instead of shark cupcakes, I went with one of Amy's favorites - Carrot Cupcakes!

I've been using this simple recipe from Allrecipes.com for years and it never fails to get raves for the reason that it is simple - no extra nuts, coconut or pineapple added to it, just a lot of fresh grated carrot!

Carrot Cupcakes - Two dozen cupcakes (I usually get a few extra as well)

2 cups white sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 cups vegetable oil (I reduce to 1 and 1/4 cups, and it's still really moist)
4 eggs
3 cups grated carrots (I don't measure this, I just grate a 1 lb bag of carrots)

One pound of carrots looks like a lot but really is the perfect amount. This is because the batter is pretty gluey until the carrot adds moisture:

This is what the batter looks like after the carrots have been mixed in:

Fresh out of the oven - you can see how moist they are in the special green party cupcake cups I got in my Easter basket:

Frosted and ready to go in my Crate and Barrel cupcake holder (best birthday gift ever from Amy a few years back, so it's appropriate that I use it to hold her birthday cupcakes)

DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).

Combine the sugar, flour, salt, cinnamon, soda, oil. With an electric mixer beat in the eggs one at a time. Stir in the carrots and the walnuts. Scoop batter into cupcake liners.
Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 10 - 15 minutes - Note: the original recipe was for an actual cake, not cupcakes and I am guessing on the time since my old oven usually takes half the time to cook something than a normal oven. It took only 10 minutes in my oven. Use a toothpick to check when the cupcakes are ready to come out - there should be a few moist crumbs clinging to the toothpick.

Cream Cheese Frosting - For two dozen cupcakes

2 (8 oz) packages of regular cream cheese*

1/2 cup butter

2 cups of powdered sugar

1 teaspoon of vanilla

Beat cream cheese and butter - than add powdered sugar and vanilla. Be careful not to overbeat the frosting, as it will become too drippy.

*I made the mistake of grabbing Fat Free cream cheese instead of regular, which definitely affects the consistency of the frosting.