Simply Carrot Cake Cupcakes

These carrot cake cupcakes are everything you love about the cake—outstanding spice flavor, super moist crumb, and velvety cream cheese frosting—in a portioned cupcake wrapper! I’ve scaled down my popular carrot cake recipe to bring you a batch of cupcakes that’s easier and quicker, but just as delicious.

One reader, Leigh, commented: “Followed recipe exactly and cupcakes were delicious! Loved the tip about grating then coarse chopping the carrots. Piped frosting was the perfect consistency and so pretty. ★★★★★“

I think we can all agree that carrot cake and cream cheese frosting is a flavor duo surpassing time—it’s just never going out of style. I love it as carrot cake loaf and mixed up in this carrot Bundt cake. But nothing can compare to original carrot cake and today’s cupcake version. Just CLASSIC!

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Tell Me About These Carrot Cake Cupcakes

• Flavor: These cupcakes are scrumptiously spiced with cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg. You also have brown sugar, a little applesauce, natural sweetness from carrots, and the tangy-sweet frosting.
• Texture: The crumb of these cupcakes is soft and moist, but not at all greasy. (A difficult balance to achieve, but this recipe nails it!)
• Ease: Bakers of any skill level can handle this dessert recipe. You can mix the cupcake batter by hand, though I recommend using a mixer to make the cream cheese frosting.
• Time: The batch of cupcakes takes about 2 hours start to finish, and that includes cooling. Cupcakes cook faster than cake layers, but they still need to cool completely before frosting.

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: carrot cake is only good if it’s spiced and if it’s moist. Under-spiced carrot cake tastes like nothing. Dry carrot cake tastes like you forgot you were baking a cake and frosted a vegetable instead. Ha! I encourage you to stick to my recipe below for best results.

Key Ingredients You Need & Why

You can make carrot cake cupcakes with a handful of staple kitchen ingredients and these are the most important:

1. Brown Sugar: Brown sugar not only sweetens the cupcakes, it lends more flavor and moisture than white sugar. I love using dark brown sugar in this recipe.
2. Spices: Cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger add warmth and depth of flavor without overpowering anything else. I usually add some ground cloves to carrot cake recipes, but it’s quite potent and I don’t like it as much in the cupcakes.
3. Vegetable Oil: When preparing cupcakes without strong flavors, like vanilla cupcakes, I prefer to use butter as the fat, because it adds flavor. But when I’m making a cupcake recipe with flavorful ingredients like these spiced cupcakes, I find using flavorless oil lets all those spice flavors shine. (Also, oil keeps the cupcakes SO VERY moist!)
4. Carrots: Obviously, you need carrots. But actually, this recipe would be tasty if you substituted shredded apple or zucchini instead!
5. Unsweetened applesauce: Applesauce adds even more moisture to these cupcakes, without making them oily. I love the subtle flavor that it adds, but you could also use sour cream or plain yogurt. Another popular swap for the applesauce is crushed canned pineapple, an addition many bakers love in pineapple carrot cake!

You may be surprised to see there’s only 1 and 1/3 cups of flour, which isn’t much considering all of the wet ingredients. Keep in mind that shredded carrots, while not necessarily a dry ingredient, bulk up the batter. Any more flour created a denser muffin-like texture. Trust this recipe because it works for cupcakes!

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Success Tip: Shredding the Carrots

The bags of pre-shredded carrots you can find at the grocery store are not worth the extra couple of minutes it saves you to peel and shred whole carrots yourself. Store-bought carrot shreds are dry and tough, and that will translate into your carrot cake cupcakes. Grab whole carrots, a peeler, and a box grater, and flex your grating muscles!

And beyond that: After you’ve finished shredding, give the carrots a rough chop, so the pieces are finer and can distribute evenly in each cupcake, like this:

In this photo, you can see the difference. You want more carrots (moisture! flavor!) in each bite, so chop those shreds:

Photos: How to Make Carrot Cake Cupcakes

The full printable recipe is below, but let’s see a few photos of the process.

Expect a semi-thick cupcake batter:

We’re using my favorite cool and creamy cream cheese frosting recipe, which flawlessly pairs with warmly spiced desserts like carrot cake, spice cake, and pumpkin cake. One question we usually see with cream cheese frosting:

How Can I Keep My Cream Cheese Frosting Thick?

Cream cheese frosting is thinner than buttercream. Putting the frosting in the refrigerator for a bit—while you’re waiting for the cupcakes to cool—helps thicken it. This means your silky cream cheese frosting will hold its shape better when piped. Stick with basic piping tips and nothing intricate; even when chilled, the frosting will not hold shape as well as a sturdy buttercream.

And don’t fret, you don’t have to pipe this frosting; it’s just as tasty swiped on with a knife.

Or take it up another notch and fill your cupcakes with cream cheese frosting, too! Or even pastry cream. See my How to Fill Cupcakes post for more details on how to do so.

Which Other Frostings Could I Use? These carrot cake cupcakes would also taste great with whipped frosting, Swiss meringue buttercream, this caramel frosting, the cinnamon cream cheese frosting from these banana cupcakes, or simply unfrosted as carrot cake muffins (like morning glory muffins!).

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What About a Dairy-Free Frosting Option?

Today’s cupcakes are dairy free when made with applesauce, so if you’re looking for a dairy free frosting, try this creamy marshmallow meringue frosting.

I topped this batch of cream cheese-frosted cupcakes with chopped nuts and a white chocolate carrot topper, but both are completely optional. See Notes for instructions on making the white chocolate topper!

Looking for Easter dessert inspiration? These cupcakes are always a favorite alongside a plate of jelly bean sugar cookies, or see 20+ more Easter dessert recipes.

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