Carrot Cake Cupcakes

Lizzie: Here are the pictures and recipe for the yummy cupcakes I made!
Emily: Ummm...looks fantastic, but....where is your adorable write up? 
Lizzie: Oh haha, I thought you would write that. 

Clearly Lizzie underestimates the extent of my laziness.

Hello everyone. Emily is letting me write a special post on her blog because I did a very special thing over the weekend: I successfully baked from scratch... and did not burn down the house! Seriously, this is a big deal. Just last Easter I had two unsuccessful attempts at baking banana bread for two different Easter parties. I literally broiled the bread. See attached photo. So this year, I was on the hunt for redemption! I found a recipe that looked simple enough online for carrot cake cupcakes. Armed with the recipe and lots of advice from my mother, I tackled the shelves to track down All Spice (which I had never heard of!) and the other ingredients for carrot cake. The finished product? Cupcakes fit for the Easter bunny! They are a bit on the spicy side (I guess thanks to the All Spice!), but compliment the other super-sweet tasty treats in your Easter basket well. I decorated mine with cream cheese frosting (now THAT I had to buy... one step at a time, folks!) and jelly beans, but anything will do. They have so much flavor you can even eat them plain. Go on and try them! Hop to it!  

Carrot Cake Cupcakes
Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground allspice
1/4 tsp nutmeg, freshly grated
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/4 cups brown sugar
2 large eggs
1/4 cup butter, melted and cooled
1/4 cup orange juice
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups shredded carrot

Lizzie Notes: This recipe calls for 12 cupcakes, but you can easily get 13 or 14 cupcakes out of the batter!

1. Preheat the oven to 350F. Line a 12-cup muffin pan with paper liners.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, spices and salt.

 3. In a large bowl, beat together sugar and eggs until smooth.
 4. Whisk in melted butter, orange juice and vanilla extract.

5. Gradually stir in flour mixture until only a few streaks of dry ingredients remain.

6. Stir in shredded carrots.

7. Divide evenly into prepared muffin pan.

8. Bake for 16-18 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

9. Cool completely on a wire rack before frosting (and decorating!)

Deliver to your friends for Easter!