Easter inspired carrot cupcakes |

With it almost being Easter, I thought I would use my weekend to trial some chocolaty carrot cupcakes and of course roped Angelique in to assist! I mean what is Easter without a little chocolate and some bunny food, that is carrots! So here is our authentic carrot cupcake recipe.

This chocolate carrot cake cupcake recipe is delicious, chocolaty and moist. It also makes a fantastic cake if you are not in the mood for cupcakes. It doesn’t taste like a traditional carrot cake, to be honest it tastes like a chocolate cake…however, that is mainly because all the fragrant spices that are found in traditional carrot cake are missing from this chocolate version of carrot cake. Having said all that…it is still delicious and worth making!

Below are some of my top tips and also how to assemble your cupcakes.

Top tips :

For the cupcake, it is a very light and airy cupcake, so be very careful when handling them. I stuck my finger through a few – which then had to get eaten…hehe!
If you do not have white choc chips, then milk or dark chocolate will work just as well. However, I find the best place to find white choc chips is Kadies in Fourways.
After you have covered your cupcakes in the ‘soil’ layer, I would leave them 5 – 10 mins just to set and make sure that the ‘soil’ won’t lift when you start piping the ‘carrots’.
When making the orange icing, don’t use a white mixing bowl as it will turn orange – rather use a stainless steel one or an old one that you don’t mind changing colour.
When piping the ‘carrot’ try and make them a little high, not too high but remember you need enough height to get your green stalks into them.
Most importantly, have fun and be creative!

Easter inspired carrot cupcakes

chocolate carrot cake cupcakes

Ingredients

2 cups light brown sugar
1 1/2 cups canola oil
4 large eggs, room temperature
1 3/4 cups cake flour
5 tbsp cocoa powder
2 tsp bicarb (baking soda)
1/4 tsp salt
500g carrots, grated
2 cups white chocolate chips

Method

Preheat the oven to 180°C and place cupcake cups in 24 - 36 muffin pans.
Place the sugar, oil, and eggs in a stand mixer fitted with a paddle and beat until well combined. Place the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt in a separate bowl and mix well. Add to the oil mixture and mix.
Scrape down the sides of the bowl, add the carrots and chocolate chips, and mix again.
Using a heaping tablespoon, fill the prepared tins, the cupcake cups should be about 3/4 full. Place the cupcakes in the oven and bake until cooked - 22 to 25 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean and the tops are slightly domed.
Let them cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then transfer cupcakes to a wire rack and set aside to cool.

http://allthingspretty.co.za/easter-inspired-carrot-cupcakes/

How to make the icing :

To make the chocolate icing, I used the Woolworths chocolate icing and followed the instructions. As this is one of the best chocolate icings I have ever come across, it is not too sweet and is very chocolaty 🙂

For the orange Icing, using a hand mixer or stand mixer, beat 150g butter, 1 tsp vanilla and 300g icing sugar. This should give you the perfect piping icing consistency. Then add your gel colouring to the desired colour – I used a gel colouring from Kadies called electric orange.

To Decorate :

Place chocolate vermicelli (I used Staffords brand) in a small bowl and cut up green straw sweets (I used Sour Punk from Pick n Pay) into little pieces, about 2 cm in length.
Ice each cupcake with chocolate icing – it doesn’t need to be a very thick layer. It needs to be enough for the vermicelli to stick to.
Then press the cupcake (icing side down) into the bowl of chocolate vermicelli. Lift out and set a side. Repeat until all the cupcakes have their ‘soil’ covering.
Once all the cupcakes have the ‘soil’ layer, place the orange icing into a piping bag with a wide round nozzle (I used a Sweetly Does it – No 346) and pipe a “carrot” onto each cupcake.
Finally, to finish off the Easter inspired carrot cupcakes, place three green sour sweets into the “carrot” as the stalks.
Viola & enjoy your delicious carrot cupcakes!