Food + Photo = Eye Candy!

My husband can tell you, other than my obsession with photography, I love food! I'd rather go grocery shopping than going to buy clothes. In fact, I hate shopping and trying on clothes! But give me a good recipe and I'm in food heaven! Here's the latest recipe I tried out. Actually I've made them numerous times because they are oh so good! We brought them to my sister's house for our 4th of July family get together.

Thanks to smitten kitchen for this lovely recipe. I put in my Sopheavy touch to it, just a tiny bit and my shortcut version. Also I changed up the icing recipe and replaced it with brown sugar instead of maple syrup which is super delicious too.

Carrot Cupcakes with Brown Sugar Cream Icing

2 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon ground ginger
2 cups sugar (I tend to use 1/4 less than what's
called for or add a couple tablespoons of brown sugar)
1 1/4 cups canola oil (vegetable works fine)
4 large eggs
3 cups grated peeled carrots (I always put a little more)

In a large bowl, mix together the sugar, oil, and 1 eggs at a time. In another bowl, mix all the dry ingredients together (or in my case, I put it in a sifter to eliminate washing another bowl (but then I end up having to wash the sifter...kinda defeat the purpose of less washing but oh well lol)! After that, mix in the carrots until batter is thoroughly mixed. Next step, take a line baking cup (if you don't have any, just grease and flour your muffin pan or cake pan works fine if you don't want to do cupcakes).

Bake at 350F degrees (depending on your oven, mine I use 340) for about 16-18 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Cool and frost with your favorite icing. Here is mine:

Brown Sugar Cream Icing
1 1/2 cups confectioner sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar ( not necessary, you can stick with confectioner)
1 stick butter
2 packages of 8 oz. cream cheese (I prefer Philadelphia brand)

Make sure butter and cream cheese is at room temperature then
mix all ingredients together until very smooth. Refrigerate until cool.

(By the way, my husband was a big help in the making of this. Hence, the manly hands). lol.


click on picture to view larger size.