Yet another recipe for baked goods; but these are full of fruits and veggies! Chocolate carrot cake cupcakes; oh yes! I recently ran across this recipe, but cannot remember where. I love to make muffins and cupcakes and throw a bunch in my freezer, so I always have something for breakfast, whatever my morning is like!  And, as always, I taste-test everything I make before I publish a blog post, to, you know, make sure it's really worth sharing! I will say that I'm not sure I like the cinnamon in this recipe.  I think it competes with the cocoa. Try it and see what you think!

Chocolate Carrot Cake Cupcakes

Mix all dry ingredients together first:

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup cocoa powder (I used a bit more to make sure they were REALLY chocolaty)

2 1/2 cups flour

2 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. salt (I used less)

2 tsp. cinnamon

Add in the wet ingredients:

1 cup natural applesauce

1/4 cup vegetable oil

4 eggs

2 ripe mashed bananas

3 cups raw finely shredded carrots

1/2 cup milk

Pour batter into muffin tins, filling 3/4 full.  Bake at 350 for approximately 20 minutes.  The recipe indicated that it makes 26 cupcakes, but I used large and small muffin tins and ended up with 15 regular-sized cupcakes and 24 mini-cupcakes (and I am totally out of cupcake papers now...). I frosted mine with canned cream cheese frosting, but the recipe came with a suggestion for making cream cheese frosting, too.

Easy Cream Cheese Frosting

4 ounces low fat cream cheese

1/2 tsp. vanilla

1/4 cup butter

2 cups powdered sugar

 Aren't the mini-cupcakes cute? I think they taste better too ,for some reason...

 

A little too pretentious perhaps? It tasted great!