A delicious spiced Carrot Cake recipe that can be made into a cake or cupcakes! The lemon cream cheese frosting paired with the spiced carrot cake is pure perfection together! These Spiced Carrot Cake Cupcakes with Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting are the perfect Easter treat!
Carrot Cake lovers AND non carrot cake lovers — YOU NEED TO MAKE THIS RECIPE! It is hands down the best Carrot Cake recipe I’ve ever made (or eaten) and I feel very strongly that everyone needs to try it!
I prefer a spiced carrot cake versus a sweet carrot cake though, so I did omit the crushed pineapple and decided to add some nutmeg to the cake.
Now, let’s get baking!
THE BEST CARROT CAKE CUPCAKES
For the full ingredient lists and instructions, scroll to the bottom of this post!
To start, I got all my ingredients ready!
In one bowl you’ll combine and mix the dry ingredients together — the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg.
In another bowl I mixed the sugar and wet ingredients. I partially melted the country crock buttery sticks and then added the sugar, brown sugar and vanilla extract to it and mixed. Then I added one egg at a time to the wet mixture, until it’s full mixed.
Once you have the two bowls prepared, add ⅓ of the wet mixture at a time to the dry mixture.
Once the two mixtures are fully combined, gently fold the nuts and carrots in.
As I mentioned, the original recipe asked for crushed pineapple, but I omitted the crushed pineapple and added ½ teaspoon nutmeg to the dry ingredients.
I used a cookie scoop to fill my cupcake liners that I had placed in my cupcake pan! It worked perfectly! This recipe will make approx 24 cupcakes.
Bake at 350 degrees for 14-18 minutes or until a toothpick or tester inserted into the center comes out clean. Allow to cool for 5 minutes before removing them from the pan. Make sure the cupcakes are completely cooled before frosting.
LEMON CREAM CHEESE FROSTING
While the cupcakes are cooking, prepare the frosting.
Using my base Cream Cheese Frosting Recipe, you can make the delicious Lemon flavored version by adding in 1 tsp lemon juice and 1 tsp lemon zest!
As soon as it’s mixed, I put it in the fridge to harden a little. Once the cupcakes are completely cooled, then you can go ahead pipe the frosting on or use a knife to frost them!
I generally like to use my piping bag to pipe the frosting on my cupcakes!
Once they’re all piped — go ahead and DIVE IN!
They look beyond tasty! Believe me when I say they are!
Spiced Carrot Cake Cupcakes with Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting
Ingredients
- SPICED CARROT CAKE CUPCAKES
- 2 cups 260g / 9oz plain / all-purpose flour
- 2 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 ¼ cup 280g / 10oz Country Crock Unsalted Buttery Sticks (2 sticks)
- 1 cup 200g / 7oz granulated sugar
- 1 cup 200g / 7oz lightly packed brown sugar
- 1 ½ tsp ground cinnamon
- ½ tsp ground nutmeg
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 4 large eggs
- 2 ½ cups 260g / 9oz grated peeled carrots (4 to 5 carrots)
- 1 cup 100g / 3.5oz coarsely chopped walnuts
- LEMON CREAM CHEESE FROSTING
- 110 g / 4oz 1 stick Country Crock Unsalted Buttery Sticks
- 225 g / 8 oz cream cheese at room temperature
- 1 tsp finely grated lemon zest
- 1 tsp lemon juice
- 2 cups 260g / 9oz powdered sugar
Instructions
- SPICED CARROT CAKE CUPCAKES
- Heat the oven to 350º F / 180 C.
- Sift flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon together, then whisk until well blended.
- Melt Country Crock Unsalted Buttery Sticks and whisk together with both sugars and
- vanilla. Add eggs, one at a time, whisking until combined
- In a separate bowl, whisk together the melted Buttery Sticks, sugars and vanilla.
- Whisk in eggs, one at a time, until blended.
- Add dry ingredients to the wet mixture one third at a time, using a spatula or wooden
- spoon to gently fold through after each addition
- Add carrot and nuts, gently folding to combine.
- Divide batter into approx. 24 cupcake liners and bake for 14 to 18 minutes (or until a toothpick or tester inserted into the center comes out clean).
- Allow to cool 5 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.
- Cool completely before frosting.
For a cake
- Heat the oven to 350º F / 180 C. Grease two 9-inch round cake pans and line with
- parchment or baking paper.
- Divide the batter evenly between the prepared cake pans
- Bake until the tops of the cake layers spring back when touched and when a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean; 35 to 45 minutes.
- Cool cakes in pans for 15 mins before turning onto cooling racks, remove any parchment paper and cool completely before frosting.
LEMON CREAM CHEESE FROSTING
- In a large bowl, combine Country Crock Unsalted Buttery Sticks and softened cream
- cheese. Beat with an electric mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy (about 2
- minutes).
- Add the powdered sugar ¼ cup at a time and beat well after each addition.
- Add lemon zest to taste and use lemon juice to adjust frosting consistency. For a large
- cake, add a little more lemon juice to get a smoother more spreadable frosting. For
- cupcakes, only add 1 tsp or leave the lemon juice out altogether for a firmer frosting
- consistency.
Notes
This absolutely makes the perfect treat for Easter too!!
If you love this recipe, then I’d love you forever if you wanted to pin the image below:
Kimberly
This looks really good. My daughter really loves cupcakes. Definitely gonna give this one a try soon, hope it will be tasty for her.