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 1/2-1 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 1/4 cups all-purpose flour (157g)
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar (100g)
- 1/2 cup light brown sugar packed (100g)
- 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
- 3/4 cups canola oil (180ml)
- 2 large eggs room temperature
- 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 2 Tablespoons milk
- 1 1/2 cups grated carrots (170g)
- ½ cup chopped walnuts or pecans optional
- 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 2/3-3/4 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
Katie says
Can you substitute coconut oil for the canola? These look perfect for my one year olds birthday!
Sam says
Hi Katie! I think that would work just fine. 🙂
Audrey says
I’m really frustrated with this recipe because I’ve tried it twice and it falls every time, I tried once with the electric mixer and another without and still falling…
Sam says
Hi Audrey! I am so sorry to hear that, that is very frustrating. There are typically a few reasons cupcakes will sink:
1. The batter is under-mixed
2. The cupcakes are under-baked
3. The cupcake liners are too full when placing them in the oven.
I really hope this helps and I hope you will be able to enjoy delicious nonsunken cupcakes in the near future. 🙂
Lisa says
I love the green and orange candifetti you show on your cupcakes! Do you have a source for those?
Sam says
Hi Lisa! They are actually a brand called Chocomaker, I found them at Walmart. 🙂
Lisa says
Thank You!
Laura Gillert says
I want to use this recipe for cupcakes but also for a small 8”cake how to I time adjust the baking of the cake
Sam says
Hi Laura! The cake would probably need to bake for about 40ish minutes. 🙂
Yael says
I just made these for my daughter’s thespian troupe and they devoured them! I made them into 60 mini cupcakes – I doubled the recipe for the cupcakes and made a single recipe of the cream cheese frosting. I used a suggestion that was given by another baker to substitute the nuts & raisins with mini-chocolate chips (I had to make them nut-free). Thank you for the wonderful recipe!
Sam says
I am so glad everyone enjoyed the cupcakes, Yael! 🙂
Carla says
Is there no Flour in this Recipe?
Sam says
Hi Carla, it is the first ingredient 🙂
Carla says
Thank you ! I completely missed 😮
Tina Boyd says
Such a great recipe and easy to follow, just doubled it to make 2 dozen for my work friends, my husband ‘tested’ them and deemed them the best ever! I’ve made the cream cheese frosting too.
Sam says
I am so glad everyone enjoys the cupcakes, Tina! 🙂
Zion Kim says
May I use vegetable oil instead of canola oil?
Sam says
Yes that will work fine. 🙂
Kat says
Thank you so much for this recipe! The cupcakes really made my mother in laws birthday! She enjoys carrot cake but is trying to be careful with sweets so it was the perfect portion. Next I’ll try your carrot cake cookies! Thank you again, they came out perfect.
Sam says
I am so glad you enjoyed them, Kat! I hope you love the cookies just as much. 🙂
Lada says
Super moist,super tasty ,recommended so much ,Thank you for shering😊😊😊😊
Sam says
I am so glad you enjoyed it, Lada! 🙂
Jaymi says
Beautifully moist !!!
Made them a third time !!!
Sam says
I am so glad you enjoyed them, Jaymi! 🙂
Evie Frak says
Very easy recipe and the outcome of my baking was delicious. I am no good at cooking or baking so the easier recipe the better. I felt so proud of myself when my familly commented very positively after tasting the cupcakes. They came out perfect. I try my hardest to bake with my daughter and mainly for her and for that reason I halved the ingredients to make cupkaces smaller and did not do frosting as my little one is very fussy. I have no electric mixer so used blender instead and added double portion of milk because it was not easy to mix with the blender but it made the cupkakes really soft and moist, and carrots grating were smaller which was perfect. 12 cupkaces got eatten in a day and I’m just baking another lot but with less sugar (my daugter doesn’t like too much sweetness in food). I would recommend this receipe to everyone. If I could bake them, everybody can.
Sam says
I am so glad everyone enjoyed them, Evie! That’s a lot of cupcakes to be eaten in a day! They must have been really good. 🙂
Desiree R. says
Made these for my sister’s birthday and we all loved them! I actually cut the recipe in half because I only had one egg left and I didn’t have any good egg substitutes on hand. Didn’t have any nutmeg so I added extra cinnamon and a bit of cloves. I didn’t have any of the suggested add-ins, but put a few almonds on the top of each one so they got nice and roasted. I also added extra carrots. Made the tagged cream cheese frosting recipe as well.
Sam says
I am so glad you enjoyed it, Desiree! The almonds on top sound like an excellent addition. 🙂
Shweta jain says
Hey ,
What should be used in place of eggs ???
Sam says
I’m sorry, I don’t know what you could use as a substitute for eggs. 🙁
Krystal Lowe says
They egg supplement at bulk store
Mo says
I loved this.
Sam says
Thank you so much! 🙂