Carrot Cake Cupcakes Recipe + Edible Grass Topper

Ever wanted to make carrot cake from scratch…AND turn it into an adorable cupcake form? This is your recipe, friends! We’ve not only outlined how to bake this carrot cake cupcakes recipe using actual carrots, we’ve also put together instructions on decorating them in the most adorable way possible. Exciting, right?!

If you’re reading this carrot cake cupcake recipe, Easter is probably coming up for you. We bet you’re feeling pretty festive right about now! These cupcakes are the perfect springtime treat.

We had a ton of requests last year from our carrot cupcakes in last year’s Easter cupcake ideas posts so here it is!

Surprise your loved ones with them or bring them to your next party, get together, or church outing! They are such a fun activity to do at home with the kids.

Carrot Cake Cupcakes Recipe

Serves: 24-30 cupcakes

Prep Time: 15 min

Cook Time: 15 min

Ingredients

• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 cups granulated sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 4 eggs, beaten, room temperature
• 1 cup canola oil or even coconut oil
• 1/2 cup buttermilk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3 cups finely shredded carrots
• 3/4 cup chopped walnuts or pecans
• 3/4 cup raisins

For the orange frosting, we used our cream cheese frosting recipe!

Utensils & Other Items

• Cupcake pan
• Cupcake liners (we recommend our orange dot or solid forest cupcake liners!)
• 3 bowls
• Whisk
• Toothpick

How To Make Carrot Cake Cupcakes

We’ll get into how to actually decorate these cupcakes to look like our lovely photos in the next section! This is just for making the cupcakes and the frosting themselves.

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and fill muffin pan with paper liners.
2. In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon. Whisk together.
3. In another bowl make wet ingredients by beating eggs, then mix in canola oil, buttermilk, vanilla, and carrots.
4. Add carrot mixture to dry ingredients flour mixture and stir to combine.
5. Fold in walnuts and raisins.
6. Divide batter into cupcake liners and bake for about 12-15 minutes baking time or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
7. Cool completely.
8. While cooling, prepare the cream cheese frosting recipe.

Note: This great recipe can also be made into a 13×9 cake too! Just bake for 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Easy!

How to Decorate Carrot Cake Cupcakes

It’s super simple to create the adorable carrot-themed cupcakes we have in our photos to look like actual carrots! You could easily add a carrot candy sprinkles or pipe a carrot shape on top of regular buttercream frosting of course. But how fun is making these look like actual carrots?

This decorating technique is perfect to do with your kids at home during this quarantine time. Just a little piping, sprinkles, and edible grass. There is no party of this that requires any decorating experience at all! Let’s get started!

Besides the ingredients list for the frosting recipe, you’ll need to get your sprinkles and edible grass which you can find in most of your local stores during Easter season! We chose a round tip for the piping to mimic the natural ribs on carrots but you could dress it up with any piping tip you have at home!

1. First, you’ll want to make the buttercream frosting above, obviously!
2. You’ll also want to add orange food coloring/dye to the buttercream frosting. Use as much or as little as you want for the carrot-y color effect you desire!
3. Frost the cupcakes with the buttercream frosting using a plain round jumbo piping tip.
4. Use edible Easter grass to make the “carrot tops”! Stick a few blades of Easter grass directly into the frosting, standing up.
5. Top the frosting with orange sprinkles (like our orange jimmies)!

Carrot Cake Cupcakes: Tips & Tricks

• For those with nut allergies, you can absolutely leave them out of this recipe and you’ll still get the same carrot cake-y experience! We just consider them part of the traditional carrot cake, which is why we included them. They’re not necessary though!

• The raisins are also optional if you’re not a fan. You could even sub in crushed pineapple too as this is a popular add in for an extra punch of flavor!

• If you’re starting with whole carrots, use a food processor to shred your carrots to get them down to a good size. You don’t want carrot chunks in this recipe!

Did you enjoy these Easter carrot cupcakes?

Now you’ve got a fabulous recipe for a mini version of an old favorite! Feel free to leave us comments about this carrot cake recipe. Whether you adored them or needed more clarification with the recipe, let us know and we’ll try to respond.

We have lots more cupcake ideas on the blog!

Need more cupcakes in your life? Of course you do! (Who doesn’t?!) Take a gander at these recipes for sweet inspiration:

• Chocolate or Strawberry Funfetti
• Coconut Marshmallow
• Hi Hat Tutorial – change up colors for spring!
• Easter cupcake ideas
• Swirl Pastel cupcake tutorial