Homemade Carrot Cupcakes

I decided to clean out my garden last week - pull all of the dead stuff, prune the veggies that still had some life left and pull all veggies that were ready to be eaten. This means I was left with a TON of carrots. I've been pulling carrots all season - eating them when I needed them, but I didn't even put a dent in them. 

That one carrot on the far right was bigger around than some of the cucumbers I grew!

So naturally, I needed something to do with all of these carrots. Since my dad was going to be visiting, and both of my parents LOVE carrot cake, I decided to make some carrot cupcakes - from scratch - with home grown carrots.

I've done this once before - shredded the carrots by hand - NOT FUN. But I got a food processor for my birthday last year, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity to get some use out of it!

Took 4 minutes to complete this shred - about 1.5 hours faster than the manual way.

I used a recipe I found from a google search - you can find it HERE. The thing I love about this recipe is the fact that it only makes 12 cupcakes. So if you don't want to have a ton of cupcakes, this is perfect. It also calls for plain yogurt which adds a bunch of moisture. 

All of the ingredients needed for the cupcake - not including the carrots. 

On a side note - do NOT buy this kind of baking soda if you are planning to use it for baking. When I saw it at the store I was super excited because it actually closed back up and SEALED. Well, as you can see it's not exactly easy to pour the soda into the measuring spoon. Most importantly, you can't get the lid off at all! So I end up having to pour it out over the sink and I have a lot of waste - time to go back to the good old box variety. 

So, you mix together your dry ingredients and set them aside. Mix your wet ingredients in a separate bowl, and once they are combined stir in your shredded carrots. Then gradually add the dry ingredients making sure they are completely combined before adding more. 

                  

Once everything is mixed together, divide the batter evenly in a 12 cupcake pan (make sure to line the pan first!) 

Bake at 375 for 25-30 minutes, rotating the pan half way through. Insert a toothpick to determine if they are done. Once it comes out clean you're good to go (I check everything at about 20 mins, and pull them out when the toothpick isn't COMPLETELY clean, because I like a moister cupcake)

Transfer them to a wire rack and let them cool 100% before frosting. The frosting recipe is on the link I posted above. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of me making the frosting - my dad showed up in town around that time, and I was completely distracted. I do have a picture of the final product - very delicious! 

I used a super large frosting tip, and just put the frosting in a ziplock that I cut the corner out of. This way, when I was done I pulled out the frosting tip, and throw the bag away. There is nothing worse than cleaning out those reusable frosting bags - yuck!

Let me know if you try out this recipe and if you like it!!