Carrot Cake Cupcakes

{Carrot Cake Cupcakes with Vegan Cream Cheese Frosting}

I am so grateful that I am not lactose intolerant. Unfortunately, there are people who suffer the unspeakable and are unable to enjoy dairy products. A few of my coworkers are such people. There is one coworker in particular, however, who I felt really guilty towards. He has always been so nice and helpful but he can never enjoy anything I bring to the office because literally everything I make involves dairy in one way or another. So I finally asked him what he wanted. He said carrot cake.

Luckily for me, the oh-so-very-talented smitten kitchen has a carrot cake cupcake recipe that sounded awesome. I had bookmarked it a long time ago and yesterday was finally time to use it.

Carrot Cake
I halved her recipe since I was only making a dozen cupcakes. I also left out a couple of ingredients; please refer to her site for the entire recipe.

1 cup all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1 cup sugar
3/4 cups canola oil
2 large eggs
1 1/2 cups grated peeled carrots (this used up 3 carrots for me. I also grated them by hand.)

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Line 24 cupcake molds with papers, or butter and flour them.

Whisk flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger in medium bowl to blend. Whisk sugar and oil in large bowl until well blended. Whisk in eggs 1 at a time. Add flour mixture and stir until blended. Stir in carrots, walnuts and raisins, if using them. Divide batter among cupcake molds, filling 3/4 of each.

Bake cupcakes 14 to 18 minutes, or until a tester inserted into the center of one comes out clean. Let cool in pans for five minutes or so, then transfer cakes to a cooling rack. Let cool completely before icing them. Since I bake in a toaster oven, times are always different for me. I ended up baking it for about 20 minutes and then using the convection function for about 5 before the cupcakes were fully done.


{Cooling down after the toaster oven}

She also makes her with a maple cream cheese frosting but I didn't have any maple syrup. And I couldn't use cream cheese. What is a girl to do? Google vegan cream cheese frostings. I ended up using the one on Food.com.

Vegan Cream Cheese Frosting

1/4 cup non-hydrogenated margarine (softened)
1/4 cup vegan cream cheese, softened (Tofutti) (you can find this at your local Whole Foods)
2 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Cream together margarine and cream cheese until just combined. Use a handheld mixer to whip while adding the confectioners' sugar in 1/2 cup batches. Mix until smooth and creamy, then mix in the vanilla. Keep tightly covered and refrigerated until ready to use.

I made this last night as well, plopped it all into a piping bag, and then left it in the fridge overnight. I think I took it out too early this morning before frosting, however, as the consistency wasn't perfect. I tried my best to pipe it like smitten kitchen, but I am such an amateur. With no hand coordination. I had to give up on some of them.


{Cupcakes with frosting piped two ways}

But it's the effort that counts, right? My coworkers didn't complain. In fact, they loved the cupcakes. And I have to say, if I hadn't made the frosting myself, I wouldn't know that it was "fake" cream cheese. I am definitely open to making more dairy-free baked goods in the future. Does my recipe also count as being vegan-friendly?

{Cupcakes all ready to go!}