15 | 52 Carrot Cake Muffins with Cream Cheese Frosting

A classic. Always good. Comfort food.

Also perfect for Easter. 

I know, I know. Easter is over. 

But it will come around again next year, right?

 All muffins were gone before I had a chance to photograph them...

Carrot Cake Muffins with Cream Cheese Frosting

From i heart naptime

Muffins

320 g (2 1/2 cups) flour

1 1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1 1/4 teaspoon baking powder

1 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon all-spice

300 g (1 1/2 cups) sugar

110 g (1/2 cup) packed brown sugar

4 eggs

240 ml (1 cup) vegetable oil

120 g (1/2 cup) sour cream

1 teaspoon vanilla

3 medium/big carrots, shredded

Frosting
225 g (8 oz) cream cheese

113 g (1/2 cup) butter, softened

500 g (4 cups) powdered sugar

2 1/2 teaspoon vanilla

• Preheat oven to 175ºC (350ºF). Line muffin tin with paper cups.
• Mix dry ingredients (flour, baking soda and powder, and spices) in a bowl.
• In a big bowl, beat eggs. Add sugars, oil, sour cream, and vanilla and mix until combined. Add flour mix slowly until just combined. Fold in carrots.
• Fill muffin papers 2/3 and bake for 20-25 minutes. Let cool.
• For the frosting, beat together cream cheese and butter. Slowly add the powdered sugar. Add vanilla. Frost muffins as you like.

My modifications: 
I reduced the white sugar to 200 g (1 cup), I used coconut oil instead of vegetable oil, and I reduced the amount of powdered sugar in the frosting (because 500 g/4 cups is just an insanely high amount...)
Next time, I would reduce the overall amount of ingredients by 1/3 because I had way to much batter. Besides the regular muffin pan with 12 muffins, I was also able to fill 6 small paper loaf forms... 

The taste:

Good but I've had better carrot cake. It didn't really taste like carrots, actually. And it also wasn't very moist. It also wasn't dry - don't get me wrong - but it wasn't 'carrot-cake-moist'. Do you know what I mean? So all in all they were okay but I will most likely not make this recipe again.

Do you have a favorite Carrot Cake recipe?

5/52 Peanut-Apple-Cupcakes

Winter has finally arrived. The snow has mostly melted but it is still very cold outside.
Eating healthy is always a good thing but even better when it's cold, right?

So let's assume that baking (or rather: eating) cupcakes with apples, fresh ginger and peanuts is healthy.
Because it is, isn't it?

Besides the health-aspect, I picked these cupcakes because the combination of peanuts and apples is hard to resist. Isn't apple jelly the best thing you can put on your peanut butter sandwich? I sure think so. (My mom won't even touch a peanut butter sandwich unless there's apple jelly on top...)

Oh, but before we start with the recipe, let's pretend you haven't read the title and introduction of this post. Because I made a little rebus or picture puzzle for you. 

I know it's a tough one but what did I bake this week?

 Congrats, well done! Peanut-Apple-Cupcakes it is!

Peanut-Apple-Cupcakes

Adapted from Cupcakes which my cousin-in-law Karmen gave me for Christmas

Makes 12 cupcakes:

vanilla pulp of one vanilla bean (or vanilla extract)

200 g (1.8 stick or 7 oz) butter, at room temperature

160 g (0.8 cup) sugar

4 eggs

200 g (1.6 cups) flour

2 heaped teaspoons baking powder

pinch of salt

2 apples, peeled and roughly grated

1 piece of fresh ginger (about 2 cm/0.8 in), peeled and finely grated

1 lime

Frosting: 

3 tablespoons peanuts

150 g (1.3 stick or 5.3 oz) butter, at room temperature

150 g (7 oz) cream cheese

2 tablespoons peanut butter

4 tablespoons powdered sugar

• Preheat oven to 180 °C (360°F).

• Mix together vanilla pulp, butter and sugar until creamy.

• Add eggs one at a time.

• In a separate bowl, mix flour, baking powder and salt. Sift over butter mixture and combine quickly.

• Mix apples and ginger with lime juice and zest. Fold into batter.

• Fill in prepared muffin pan and bake on middle rack for 25 minutes. Take out of pan after a couple of minutes to cool off completely.

• For the frosting, chop and roast peanuts. 

• Stir together butter, cream cheese, peanut butter and powdered sugar. 

• Top cupcakes with frosting and sprinkle with roasted peanuts.

My modifications:

I didn't roast the peanuts and added them to the cupcake batter together with the apples and ginger. I just felt that there should be a bit of peanut flavor in the cupcakes as well, not just in the frosting. So I didn't sprinkle anything on the frosting.

I also just chopped the apples and ginger, as opposed to grating them. (And yes, only because I was too lazy...) But since I chopped them pretty finely, you are not biting on big chunks of apple or ginger when eating the cupcakes.

6 cupcakes went straight to the freezer, without frosting. So I only made half of the frosting for the remaining 6 cupcakes.

What is your favorite "healthy" baking recipe?