Carrot Cake Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting
- By Amy Dong
- Published Mar. 28, 2024
These supremely tender Carrot Cake Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting are a pint-sized carrot cake. They’re perfect for passing around at Easter gatherings and takes little more than 30 minutes.
In This Article
Why This Recipe Stands Out
With spring just around the corner and Easter on the horizon, we’re finding ourselves craving a nice big slice of Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting. Here’s why we love making the cupcake version of this delicious spiced treat:
- Super Moist: This carrot cake cupcake recipe provides the perfect avenue for sneaking plenty of carrots into dessert, which makes them ultra moist.
- Easter: These cupcakes are one of our favorite desserts for Easter – they’re bright, vibrant, and portable.
- Fluffy and Tender: If not done right, carrot cake can have a tendency to turn out dry and dense, but this recipe gives you all the tips and tricks for a super tender, fluffy cupcake.
- Frosting: The simple, but delicious cream cheese frosting is perfectly fluffy and soft and can also be used as a filling!
- Portable: One thing we love about our favorite cupcakes recipes is how portable they are – these carrot cake cupcakes are super easy to pass around at potlucks.
Key Recipe Ingredients
- Carrots – 3 cups of freshly grated carrots offer extra moisture and pack in the vitamins without feeling like you’re even eating vegetables.
- Spices – Cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger provide plenty of flavor to the cupcakes.
- Canola Oil – Feel free to use olive oil in place of canola oil; we often do so, and the cakes don’t taste like olives at all.
- Walnuts – While this is totally optional, we love mixing in some chopped walnuts to the batter for a bit of crunch.
- Raisins – Another healthy add-in, raisins will add a burst of sweetness to these carrot cake cupcakes. We like plumping the raisins before baking with them.
- Frosting – Our cream cheese frosting uses just 4 simple ingredients – salted butter, cream cheese, powdered sugar, and vanilla extract.
Substitutions And Variations
Take a look at some of our favorite variations for these Carrot Cake Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting:
- Coconut: Add some added sweetness and nutty flavor, mix in some toasted shredded coconut to your batter before baking.
- Nuts: Instead of walnuts, you could also try mixing in chopped pecans, chopped almonds, or even chopped hazelnuts.
- Toppings: Try drizzling some of this 4-Ingredient Salted Caramel Sauce on top of carrot cake cupcakes.
- Frosting: Instead of cream cheese frosting, feel free to try this Stabilized Whipped Cream for a lighter, fluffier topping. We also think the spiced glaze from our Favorite Pumpkin Scones recipe would go amazingly on these.
Step-By-Step Recipe Instructions
- For the frosting: Beat butter, cream cheese, and vanilla with electric mixer. Add sugar gradually and beat well until smooth. Chill.
- In a large owl, whisk flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger until blended.
- In a separate bowl, whisk sugar, oil, and eggs until incorporated. Fold together wet and dry ingredients until just combined. Then, fold in carrots, and optional walnuts and raisins.
- Divide batter evenly into 24 lined muffin tins. Bake at 350F for 14-18 minutes.
- Allow cupcakes to cool completely before frosting.
- If you’d like to fill your cupcakes with frosting, cut a quarter-sized circle halfway deep into the cupcake, and fill with frosting. Replace top layer of cupcake, and frost the tops.
For full list of ingredients and instructions, see recipe card below.
How To Prep Ahead
To make baking day a breeze, we like using these simple tricks for prepping carrot cake cupcakes in advance:
- Make the Frosting: Cream cheese frosting will keep well in the fridge for up to 1 week. Feel free to make the frosting several days in advance. You may need to give the chilled frosting some time to soften at room temperature before frosting your cupcakes.
- Grate Carrots: The carrots can be grated several days in advance and stored in an airtight container in the fridge until ready to use.
- Mix Dry Ingredients: All the dry ingredients in this recipe (except the sugar) can be measured and mixed far in advance. Just store them in an airtight container at room temperature until ready to use.
- Bake Ahead: These delicious cupcakes are even better the next day! Bake them the day before, let them cool to room temperature, and cover until ready to frost.
Commonly Asked Questions
Frosted carrot cake cupcakes will stay fresh for up to 1 week in an airtight container in the fridge and up to 3 months in the freezer.
We highly recommend sticking with freshly shredded carrots. Pre-shredded carrots tend to be drier and tougher than freshly shredded. This stiffer texture will leave your cupcakes denser and drier and will make it harder for them to hold together. Plus, store bought shreds are generally on the larger side, and we want finely shredded carrots.
For cream cheese frosting, you’ll want to stick to regular, full-fat cream cheese. The high fat content is key for making your frosting smooth, creamy, and not too soft.
For the cake-version of this treat, check out this recipe for the Best Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting.
First, make sure not to over-mix your batter. Gently fold the ingredients together until they’re barely incorporated. Second, don’t swap the oil in this recipe for butter. Oil works really well at keeping these cupcakes extra-moist. Third, make sure not to over-bake the cupcakes. You’ll know they’re done when a toothpick comes out with a few tender crumbs attached.
Did you make this?
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Carrot Cake Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting
Ingredients
For the Frosting
- ½ cup salted butter, softened to room temp
- 16 oz regular cream cheese, softened to room temp
- 1 lb powdered sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
For the Cupcakes
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- 2 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp table salt
- 4 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 tsp ground nutmeg
- 2 tsp ground ginger
- 1 ⅔ cups granulated sugar
- 1 ¼ cups canola oil
- 4 large eggs
- 3 cups grated peeled carrots
- ½ cup chopped walnuts, optional
- ½ cup raisins, optional
Instructions
Make the Frosting
- Combine butter, cream cheese, and vanilla. Beat with electric whisk on medium high, until smooth and incorporated. Add sugar gradually and beat well until fully combined and smooth. Cover and place in fridge to chill at least 30 minutes to firm enough to frost cupcakes.
Make the Cupcakes
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Line 24 muffin tins with cupcake liners.
- In a large bowl, whisk flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger until well blended.
- In another bowl, whisk sugar and oil until well blended. Whisk in eggs 1 at a time. Slowly fold in flour mixture with wet mixture using rubber spatula, just until batter is incorporated.
- Fold in carrots, and optional walnuts and raisins. Divide batter evenly into 24 muffin tins.
- Bake cupcakes 14 to 18 minutes, or until a tester inserted into the center of one comes out almost clean. Let cool in pans for five minutes or so, then transfer cakes to a cooling rack. Let cool completely before frosting.
- When ready to serve, let chilled frosting rest at room temp long enough to reach desired frosting consistency. Frost cupcakes and serve.
- If you'd like to fill the inside of cupcakes with frosting, simply use a sharp knife to cut a quarter-sized circle (about halfway deep into the cupcake) and fill with frosting. Replace the top layer of cupcake, and frost the tops.
Notes
- Make sure your butter and cream cheese are softened to room temperature before beating. This will help your frosting turn out smooth and velvety (and will also make your life much easier).
- We think this 4-Ingredient Salted Caramel Sauce would go perfectly on carrot cake cupcakes.
- For more substitutions and variations, see original article.
Nutrition (per serving)
More To Bake And Eat
- Boston Cream Cupcakes – If you like Boston Cream Pie, you’ll be obsessed with these tender, soft Boston Cream Cupcakes with a custardy, golden filling.
- Perfect Pumpkin Cupcakes – These pumpkin cupcakes are the perfect fall treat – we can’t get enough of the whipped cream frosting.
- Strawberry Cupcakes with Frosting – There’s nothing artificial in these strawberry cupcakes, just tons of fresh strawberries and cream!
- Not Your Hostess Cupcakes – Homemade Hostess cupcakes are exceedingly better than the store-bought version. The adults will be fighting the kids for these.