Carrot Cupcakes with Orange Icing

Wpis w wersji polskiej

Today I have a recipe for not only delicious, but also healthy cupcakes for you. They're made with oil in place of butter and contain super healthy carrots. Not too sweet themselves, they become a real sugary treat after icing. The orange flavor of icing goes perfectly with the spicy taste of the cakes. The recipe comes from a Polish book Ciasta, ciastak i takie tam by Agata Królak. I'll certainly write more about the book in one of my future posts. Meanwhile, here's the recipe for the carrot cupcakes. Enjoy!

Carrot Cupcakes with Orange Icing

Makes 12

FOR THE CUPCAKES:

2 cups carrots, grated

1 ½ cup all-purpose flour

1 ½ teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon baking soda

1-2 teaspoons salt*

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

½ teaspoon ground ginger

¾ cup neutral vegetable oil (e.g sunflower)

3 large eggs

1 cup light brown sugar

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

FOR THE ICING:

1 ¼ cup icing sugar

3 teaspoons orange zest, finely grated

2-4 tbsp freshly-squeezed orange juice

Preheat the oven to 180 °C. (350 °F) Line 12 muffin holes with paper cases.

In a bowl mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and ginger. Set aside.

In a separate bowl mix (I used electric mixer) vegetable oil, eggs, light brown sugar, vanilla extract and carrots. Pour into the flour mixture and stir until combined.

Spoon the batter into the cases. Bake for about 25 minutes or until a skewer inserted inside comes out clean.

To prepare the icing, in a small bowl mix the icing sugar, orange zest and 2 tbsp of orange juice. Add more juice if needed. Spread ready icing on cooled cupcakes.

*The original recipe calls for 2 teaspoons of salt, I suggest you to reduce it to 1 teaspoon as the cupcakes came out quite salty. 

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So simple. So delicious.

Wpis w wersji polskiej

Hello everyone, I'm back from a long trip to Poland with a new recipe. This is a plain cake, made of simple ingredients. It has a wonderful creamy flavor with a delicate citrus note. Soft and moist, it stays fresh for many days. The secret of its amazing structure and taste comes from the addition of heavy cream. The fresh zesty note was achieved by adding lemon and orange zest. I found this recipe on Kokken69 blog, but its original version comes from The Cake Book by Tish Boyle, a book that I'm certainly going to buy it the nearest future ;-)

Have a nice day everyone,

Plainly Perfect Pound Cake

200g all-purpose flour

¼ teaspoon baking powder

¼ teaspoon salt

227g unsalted butter, softened

200g caster sugar

4 large eggs

1 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest

1 teaspoon grated orange zest

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

80 ml heavy cream

Preheat oven to 170°C.

Sift flour with baking powder and salt. Set aside.

Cream butter in a mixer at medium high speed (about 2 min). Add sugar gradually. Continue beating for 4 min or until light and fluffy.

Reduce the mixing speed of the mixer to low and add eggs one at a time mixing well after each addition.Add the lemon zest, orange zest and vanilla extract.

Add flour mixture alternating it with cream in the following order: flour, cream, flour, cream, flour.

Pour into lined pound cake mold and bake for 60-70 min. or until a skewer inserted inside comes out clean.

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