Vegan Carrot Cake Cupcakes
These light and fluffy vegan carrot cake cupcakes are topped with a luscious vegan cream cheese frosting, and dusted with walnuts. They're a simple dessert perfect for birthdays, spring, and Easter!
Servings: 10 cupcakes
Calories: 139kcal
Equipment
- food processor used to help shred the carrots, or you can use a grater
Ingredients
Dry Ingredients
- 1 ½ cups white whole wheat flour or spelt flour
- ½ cup organic cane sugar or coconut sugar
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ tsp cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon nutmeg
- ¼ teaspoon cloves
- ½ teaspoon salt
Wet Ingredients
- ½ cup applesauce
- ⅓ cup unsweetened almond milk or other plant milk
- 2 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
- 2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup shredded carrots packed
Optional
- ⅓ cup chopped walnuts plus more for topping
Frosting
- 1 batch vegan cream cheese frosting
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 F. Line muffin tin with 9-12 liners.
- In a large mixing bowl whisk together flour, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, organic cane sugar, and salt. Set aside.
- In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together applesauce, almond milk, apple cider vinegar, vanilla extract, and carrots.
- Pour wet ingredients into dry ingredients. Fold together until just combined.
- Add walnuts, and gently fold into the batter.
- Add the batter to the muffin cups about ¾ of the way full. Bake for 20 minutes.
- Allow cupcakes to cool for 10 minutes in the muffin tin, then remove and allow to cool completely on a wire rack.
Frosting the Cupcakes
- While cupcakes are cooling prepare the frosting.
- Place the frosting in a piping bag, and pipe frosting on top of cooled cupcakes. Top with a few finely chopped walnuts.
Video
Notes
Tips for Making Vegan Carrot Cake Cupcakes
- For a light and fluffy bake sift flour, baking powder, salt and spices. This also allows for the baking powder and spices to evenly distribute throughout the flour.
- Spoon the flour into measuring cups rather than scooping the flour out of the bag. Flour gets packed down in the bag, spooning the flour helps to ensure that you get the correct amount of flour you need.
- Finely grate your carrots.
- Don't over mix the batter.
- If the batter seems a little dry, add a tablespoon or two of applesauce.
- Fill the cupcake liners ¾ of the way full and even up the top so that the cupcakes bake evenly. You can also use a measuring cup to ensure they are filled evenly.
- Make sure cupcakes are completely cooled before frosting.
- Prepare the frosting in advance. Keep in the refrigerator, and don't add to the piping bag until you're ready to pipe the cupcakes. Leaving the frosting at room temperature will soften the frosting making it more difficult to pipe.
- Nutritional information is an estimate and does not include frosting.
- Store in the refrigerator for 3-4 days.
- Cupcakes will keep at room temperature for a couple of hours. If they don't have the cream cheese frosting on top they will keep it for longer.
Nutrition
Calories: 139kcal | Carbohydrates: 26g | Protein: 3g | Fat: 3g | Saturated Fat: 1g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 2g | Monounsaturated Fat: 1g | Sodium: 192mg | Potassium: 90mg | Fiber: 3g | Sugar: 12g | Vitamin A: 2143IU | Vitamin C: 1mg | Calcium: 32mg | Iron: 1mg