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.
Enjoy! The full printable recipe is just below the video, make sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel if you enjoy watching these videos!!
How Do You Make Carrot Cake Cupcakes
Carrot Cake Cupcakes
Ingredients
- 1 ¼ cups (157 g) all-purpose flour
- ½ cup (100 g) granulated sugar
- ½ cup (100 g) light brown sugar packed
- ¾ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon nutmeg
- ¾ cups (180 ml) avocado, vegetable, or canola oil
- 2 large eggs room temperature
- 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
- 2 Tablespoons milk
- 1 ½ cups (170 g) grated carrots
- ½ cup (60 g) chopped walnuts or pecans, optional
- 1 batch Cream Cheese Frosting
Recommended Equipment
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.1 ¼ cups (157 g) all-purpose flour, ½ cup (100 g) granulated sugar, ½ cup (100 g) light brown sugar packed, ¾ teaspoon baking soda, ½ teaspoon baking powder, ½ teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, ¼ teaspoon nutmeg
- Stir in oil. Add eggs, one at a time, pausing to scrape down sides of the bowl after each addition. Beat until well-combined.¾ cups (180 ml) avocado, vegetable, or canola oil, 2 large eggs
- Stir in vanilla extract and milk.1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract, 2 Tablespoons milk
- Add carrots and nuts (if using). and stir until combined.1 ½ cups (170 g) grated carrots, ½ cup (60 g) chopped walnuts or pecans, optional
- 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 in the baking tin for 5 minutes before carefully removing to a cooling rack to cool completely before decorating with cream cheese frosting*.1 batch Cream Cheese Frosting
Notes
Storing
Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 5 days.Nutrition
Nutritional information is based on third-party calculations and should be considered an estimate only. Actual nutritional content will vary based upon brands used, measuring methods, cooking method, portion sizes, and more.
Nupur
These cupcakes look amazing but my son is allergic to eggs. Do you have any recommendations for substitutes?
Thanks 😊
Emily @ Sugar Spun Run
Hi Nupur! We have had one reader successfully substitute bananas for the eggs. Flax eggs might work as well, but unfortunately this really isn’t our area of expertise 😞
Bridget Gunner
Hi Sam,
I made these this evening, they came out really well. Nice, easy and quick recipe, thanks. I used coconut oil instead of canola oil, and accidentally put eggs into mix before the oil, but they still came our deliciously. I can never wait for them to cool down before trying one. I had some cream cheese frosting leftover that I had stored in the freezer, once defrosted I just added some fresh powdered sugar (icing sugar as we call it), at icing came back to life.
Thanks
Bridget (from South Africa)
Ashley
Hello I wanted to make these in mini cupcakes should I adjust time or temperature thank you
Sam
Hi Ashley! You would just need to alter the bake time, but I haven’t tried it to give you a good time.
Walker
I forgot the milk and only have heavy whipping cream, can I use that?
Sam
Hi Walker! I haven’t tried it, but I would probably use 1 TBSP of water and 1 TBSP of the heavy cream. 🙂
Vera
This is my favorite carrot cake cupcake recipe.
Can I make the cupcakes and freeze them before icing them?
Sam
Hi Vera! You shouldn’t have any issues freezing these cupcakes. 🙂
Patricia
Fantastic recipe!!!
Baked them for Mother’s Day and everybody LOVED them!!!
Used sunflower oil and molasses (available where I live in Ecuador) instead of the light brown sugar.
The frosting came out so good, even though I used lactose free cream cheese! Had to add just a bit more powdered sugar for the right consistency!
Emily @ Sugar Spun Run
We’re so happy it turned out nicely for you, Patricia! Thanks for using our recipe 🥰
Krystal Field
Made these for my Kiddos bday party and boy, were they a hit. And the cream cheese frosting was to die for. Thank you!
Marissa
Amazing recipe!
Rachel
Absolutely delicious. Will make again!
Sarah Howard
Crowd approved! I will make this recipe again.
Miriam Rose Blanar
I made these for Easter and quadrupled the recipe and it ended up making 52 so of course my husband and kids had to try one yesterday to make sure they were good, and I snuck a bite from my husband’s and they were so good! There’s a lot of carrot cake cupcakes out there, but I knew I had to make yours because your are always the best and I’ve never had a recipe from you that’s failed me. So thank you again for all your hard work and for another fantastic recipe!!!
Sam
I’m so glad they were such a hit, Miriam! 🙂
Sandrine
Your recipes are truly AMAZING!
Vincent
Do I have to roast or bake a walnut before put it in a carrot cake batch?
Sam
Nope, but you certainly can if you’d like to! Enjoy!
Sally
Good morning
I need to make just half a dozen for a customer order and definitely don’t need more cupcakes around the house for myself to eat. 😬. Can I just half the recipe for half a dozen?
Sam
Hi Sally! That should work just fine. 🙂
DD
Hi there! I want to make these for my family but I live in a high elevation area – is there anything I need to add more of for high elevation?
Sam
Unfortunately I am not familiar with high altitude baking so I can’t say for sure what would need to be done. 🙁 Let me know how it goes if you try them. 🙂
DD
Oh that’s totally okay! I asked around and ended up adding 2 extra tablespoons of flour to the recipe. They are DELICIOUS and moist. Thank you for this amazing recipe 🙂
Sam
I’m glad they turned out! Thank you for the feedback. 🙂
RPK
Hi DD, I live in Fort Collins CO and I do exactly as the recipe says but instead of cupcake I use the Bundt cake pan. I have been doing this recipe for 3 years in a roll for Easter and I never had to add more flour. I hope that helps!
Antonia’s Cakez
Thank you so much for putting the amount of the ingredients in the instructions it made my life so much easier!!!!
Rachel
I used 1-to-1 non-wheat/non-corn baking flour replacement and a cream of tartar & baking soda replacement for the baking powder. And I accidentally used about 40% more cinnamon and nutmeg than indicated in the recipe. Even with those intentional and accidental changes, this recipe worked super well. Moist, flavorful, delicious. The most challenging thing was pouring the batter (which was liquid and not at all thick the way many muffin/cupcake batters are) into the muffin pan without spilling. I’d recommend using a spouted bowl. I used a long oval spoon which was OK, but a bit tedious and messy. (At first, using a round spoon was a disaster because the liquid spilled so much.) For members of the family who wanted cupcakes instead of muffins, I topped with vanilla buttercream b/c I didn’t have cream cheese in the refrigerator. Definitely delicious with the buttercream frosting, but cream cheese frosting would be even more delicious. Thank you for posting this recipe!
Sam
Thank you for letting me know how they turned out, Rachel! So glad everyone enjoyed!