Soft, fluffy, and moist carrot cake cupcakes! Made completely from scratch with real grated carrots and the option to add nuts or raisins, these cupcakes are always a hit! Make sure to top them off with the absolute best cream cheese frosting.
Carrot Cake Cupcakes will forever be my favorite way to get my daily serving of vegetables. Give me a cupcake and a zucchini muffin for each hand and I’ve got the bottom of the food pyramid covered.
Alright, maybe carrot cake cupcakes aren’t the best way to get your daily vegetables, but it’s definitely the tastiest, especially when topped off with a very generous swirl of cream cheese frosting. They’re soft, moist, and cheerfully fluffy, these cupcakes taste like springtime and sunny weather (which I could really, really use right now!).
These carrot cake cupcakes are a modified version of my favorite carrot cake. The recipe is almost identical to the cake portion except for a bit more liquid in the batter — the original is perfect for cake but I found it to be too dense in the small space of a cupcake liner and added some milk for a bit of levity.
I use all oil in this recipe (no butter) for the moistest (sorry if you hate that word, if you have a better substitute I’m happy to hear it!) cupcakes, and thanks to the spices you’re not missing anything in terms of flavor, I promise! I found that butter just didn’t give these cupcakes the texture that they really needed.
I have a few tips on how to make your own carrot cake cupcakes turn out perfectly, so let’s get into that!
Tips for Making Carrot Cake Cupcakes
- I recommend using the grate setting on your food processor to prepare your carrots, and then briefly pulsing them in your food processor for fine shreds of carrot. I feel like just grating them leaves carrot pieces that are too big, but don’t overdo it when you pulse or you’ll have carrot juice and it will impart way too much carrot flavor into your cupcakes!
- If you don’t have a food processor, you can use a hand grater to grate your carrots.
- While I didn’t use them for my carrot cake cupcakes, you can add walnuts, pecans, or raisins (why, though!) to this recipe, if you’d like. This batter can hold about ½-1 cup of add-ins.
- This recipe can be doubled to make 24 cupcakes.
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How Do You Make Carrot Cake Cupcakes
Carrot Cake Cupcakes
Ingredients
- 1 ¼ cups all-purpose flour (157g)
- ½ cup granulated sugar (100g)
- ½ cup light brown sugar packed (100g)
- ¾ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon nutmeg
- ¾ cups canola oil (180ml)
- 2 large eggs room temperature
- 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
- 2 Tablespoons milk
- 1 ½ cups grated carrots (170g)
- ½ cup chopped walnuts or pecans, optional (60g)
- 1 batch Cream Cheese Frosting
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350F (175C) and line a 12-count muffin pans with paper liners.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer (or in a large bowl using an electric mixer), whisk together flour, sugars, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg.
- Stir in canola oil. Add eggs, one at a time, pausing to scrape down sides of the bowl after each addition. Beat until well-combined.
- Stir in vanilla extract and milk.
- Add carrots and nuts (if using). and stir until combined.
- Evenly divide batter into cupcake liners, filling each ⅔-¾ of the way full. Transfer to oven and bake on 350F (175C) for 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean or with moist crumbs.
- Allow to cool completely before decorating with cream cheese frosting*.
Notes
Nutrition
Victoria
Very delicious! Thank you for the excellent recipe! I live in high altitude so added an extra tablespoon of flour and a tsp cornstarch. I made some with raisins, some with raisins and walnuts, and the rest without. A hit with everyone!
Emily @ Sugar Spun Run
Thank you for letting us know how these turned out for you, Victoria! We’re so glad you were able to modify this recipe to your needs. Enjoy! 🙂
Norma
My grandson requested Carrot Cake Cupcakes from Nana for his 5th birthday party so I went searching for a recipe and came across this. Looked like it had all the right stuff and the right amount of spice. What a hit! With both the children and the adults. I used the cream cheese frosting on both these cupcakes and the other chocolate cupcakes I made for those not partial to carrot (no accounting for taste, right?) And that was raved over, too. “Best carrot cake ever” was heard several times. Thanks for making me a star!
Sam
I’m so glad everyone enjoyed them so much, Norma! 🙂
Alyssa
Hi! I just want to know if i can substitute the oil in this recipe for melted butter, because where I live we don’t have any good vegetable or canola oil or any other non fragrant oils actually:( If i do substitute the oil for butter would it be the same quantity? Thanks so much! x
Sam
Hi Alyssa! That should be fine, yes I would just substitute the oil called for with an equal amount of melted unsalted butter. Enjoy!
Jeny An Tulog
Cab I use this recipe to make carrot loaf? 😊
Sam
I actually have a carrot cake recipe that will fill 2 9 x 5 loaf pans. 🙂
Kat
These are absolutely yummy and a really big hit !! Thank you !!! Going to make your Best Banana Cake next..!!!
Enjoyed
Kat
Sam
I’m so glad you enjoyed them so much, Kat! 🙂
Jkerr
What would be a substitute for canola oil?
Sam
Vegetable oil or any neutral cooking oil would work!
Erin N Bendetti-Mitchell
Curious about the addition of 2 tbs of milk. Most recipes don’t call for it and it’s such a tiny amount. What’s the purpose in this recipe?
Sam
The milk makes the cupcakes less likely to fall apart and actually lightens them up a bit so they aren’t a heavy dense cupcake. 🙂
Azza
Love the recipe just the right amount of sugar and spices. This was a hit for the first week of school. I used food cutter and made beautiful shapes and added them to lunch box with no frosting. Making a second batch now. Can we freeze these?
Thanks a lot
Sam
Hi Azza! I’m so glad you enjoyed them! You shouldn’t have any issues freezing these. 🙂
Erin
LOVE this recipe!! I’ve never made carrot cake before and this recipe was so simple yet SOOOOO delicious. I did alter the frosting recipe to use a little less than 3 cups of sugar but regardless delicious!
Sam
I’m so glad everyone enjoyed them so much, Erin! 🙂
Tracy
I have never made anything carrot cake before and just finished baking these with your cream cheese icing and I have to say they are amazing! My family is hooked!
Sam
I’m so glad everyone enjoyed it so much, Tracy! 🙂
Caitlin
These were so lovely! So lovely in fact that my mother-in-law requested them for her birthday!
I do have a quick question — if I were to double the batch, do I simply double all of the ingredients? Sounds like a dumb question, but I know baking is finicky and I was just curious if there’s any issues if I were to just flat out double the ingredients. Thank you!
Sam
Hi Caitlin! I’m so glad you enjoyed the cupcakes so much! You are correct, when doubling this recipe you will simply want to double all of the ingredients. 🙂
Patty Palmer
I made these cupcakes and 1/2 recipe of the cream cheese frosting yesterday. They are the best carrot cake cupcakes I’ve ever had (my husband and son agree!). I will always use this cream cheese frosting recipe from now on too. Excellent!
Sam
I’m so glad you enjoyed them so much, Patty! 🙂