Vegan Carrot Cupcakes with "Cream Cheese" Frosting

If you've been reading this blog for any length of time, you'll know that I've done a wee bit of vegan baking over the last few months. I really enjoy it. I love how unfamiliar ingredients come together in such a familiar way. The vegan baking that I've experimented with have always come out moist and delicious and these are no exception.

I chose carrot cupcakes for a couple of reasons, firstly, I didn't have all the ingredients for the ones I wanted to make (fail) and secondly, Al really likes carrot cake. He doesn't like being able to detect any hint of carrot in them though so I used a fine grater (this resulted in a grated finger - ouch!). I think if I made these again then I'd really want to add a bit more spice to bring out the flavours a bit more, I'd also add a few more raisins. I left out the walnuts as I don't care for them and I put in a few more raisins than called for as mine were enormous! The mixture only made 10 cupcakes instead of 12, that could have been because I used muffin cases rather than cupcake papers but I don't usually have that problem.

I made the cream cheese frosting too as I'd never tried it. It was fine but I think a bit of lemon to cut through the sweetness would be great. Vegan cream cheese is disgusting by itself but transforms deliciously when made into a frosting. The cakes were moist and tasty with a good light texture and the creamy frosting complemented them well.

Ingredients
75g plain flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground ginger
150g sugar
75ml vegetable oil
75ml soy yogurt (I used vanilla but you can use plain)
1 tsp vanilla
2 medium finely grated carrots
Handful of raisins

For the Frosting, combine (add the sugar in 1/2 cup batches):
50g Vegan cream cheese
50g of dairy free margarine
220g of icing sugar, sifted
Vanilla to taste


Method
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line muffin tin with 12 cupcake liners.
In a medium mixing bowl, mix together sugar, vegetable oil, yogurt, and vanilla. Sift in the dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and spices), and mix until smooth. Fold in carrots and raisins.
Fill the liners 2/3 full. Bake for 26-28 minutes, until a toothpick inserted through the center of one comes out clean.
Once fully cooled, top generously with cream cheese frosting.

This recipe is taken from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World.