Carrot Cupcakes

I was asked to bring cupcakes to Easter Dinner with my husband’s family. In addition to kid-pleasing orange creamsicle cupcakes topped with jelly beans, I made these yummy carrot cupcakes, with handmade fondant carrots and homemade cream cheese icing for the grownups.

  And guess what?  They were simple!

First, I started by making the cupcakes… that’s right, Duncan Hines BOXED carrot cupcakes (and they were delish!).  While they baked, I whipped up the fondant for the carrots.  You can find many precise recipes online for homemade fondant, but since I just needed a few little carrots I “eyeballed” it.

Homemade Fondant
– Large Marshmallows
– Water
– Food Coloring

Place 4 or 5 large marshmallows, each pulled into a few pieces and a tiny bit of water in a microwave safe bowl.  Zap for about 10-15 seconds until the marshmallows are melted (I microwaved in 5 second intervals, stirring each time until smooth). At this point add your liquid food coloring until you reach your desired color. (You might want to make it a tad bit darker than the desired end-color as you’ll be adding powdered sugar which will mellow it out a bit).  Add powdered sugar by the tablespoonful until you achieve the desired conistency — you don’t want it to be too sticky as you’ll need to be able to easily handle the fondant.  I probably used about a cup of powdered sugar.  Repeat the same process for the green “stems”.  Now shape your carrots, a little practice makes perfect! I used a toothpick to make the indentations in the carrots and also used a toothpick to make a hole in the top of the carrot where I pressed in the green stems.  Refridgerate while you make your cream cheese frosting!

I have tried so many different cream cheese frosting recipes and FINALLY have found the perfect one, from one of my fav go-to blogs, OurBestBites.com

Perfect Cream Cheese Frosting (OurBestBites.com)
Ingredients:
2 8-oz. packages cream cheese (light works fine, although it will yield a slightly softer frosting) at almost room temperature 1/2 cup salted butter at almost room temperature 2 cups sifted powdered sugar 1 teaspoon vanilla or almond extract

Instructions:
Whip together the cream cheese, butter, and extract until light and fluffy. Add in the powdered sugar and whip until smooth and fully incorporated.  Refrigerate any leftovers (or anything you’ve frosted that doesn’t get eaten immediately).

This frosting was so easy and sooo yummy!