Carrot Cake Cupcakes

Despite cooking every day, I tend to think I'm not all that good at it. In reality, I just don't love to cook. I do love to bake. And to eat. 

I made these last week and they are scrumptious. I got the recipe from Healthy Cooking. 

My secret to not spending all afternoon shredding carrots was to use my Vitamixblender. We use that blender for everything. It shreds carrots. It makes salsa. I use it for baby food. We make smoothies. It can mix/knead bread. I make soup with it. It also grinds coffee and flax seed. Anyway. Here's the  Carrot Cupcake recipe:

2/3 Cup sugar

3 T canola oil

1 egg

1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce

1 t vanilla

1 cup all-purpose flour

3/4 t baking soda

3/4 t ground cinnamon

1/4 t salt

1 1/2 cups shredded carrots

Frosting: 6 oz reduced-fat cream cheese

2/3 cup powdered sugar

1/4 t vanilla

1. In a large bowl, beat sugar, oil and egg until well blended. Beat in applesauce and vanilla. 

2. Add flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt and beat until well blended.

3. Stir in carrots.

4. Grease muffin tins and fill 12 of them evenly with batter.

5. Bake at 350 degrees for 15-20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. (I baked mine about 15 minutes. I don't like when things are overdone!)

6. I ran a knife around the side of each cupcake to loosen it and removed them immediately from the pan.

7. Make the frosting by beating all ingredients in a bowl until smooth. Frost the cupcakes when they are completely cool and refrigerate.