Cake Ingredients to Sift together - Dry Ingredients
½TeaspoonTable Salt
½TeaspoonBaking Soda
½TeaspoonBaking Powder
½TeaspoonCinnamon
⅛TeaspoonCloves
¼TeaspoonGinger
¼TeaspoonNutmeg
1⅛CupAll Purpose Flour
Browned Butter Cream Cheese Frosting
⅛CupBrowned Butter⅛ of a cup is equal to 2 tablespoons
1BrickCream Cheese(8 oz or 250g) Softened
2CupsConfectioners SugarSpooned and Leveled
1TeaspoonPure Vanilla Extractor 1 vanilla bean
½TeaspoonSalt
Cake Topping
½CupCrushed Walnuts
Instructions
Prep Work
Preheat the oven to 350°F and line a muffin tin with paper liners.
Cake - Wet Ingredients
Wash, Peel and Shred Carrots. Measure by packing the shredded carrot into a dry measuring cup, for most accurate results. I like to use the smaller 'zest' side of a box grater for this.
With a stand or hand mixer, blend the carrots with the brown sugar and white sugar on medium speed for 3 minutes.
Whisk the eggs and oil together and add in to the carrots + Sugar mixture. Mix until combined.
Cake - Dry Ingredients
Using a fine mesh sieve, combine the salt, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cloves and flour. Note: to measure the flour spoon it into a dry measuring cup and then level it off. (⅛ of a cup is equal to 2 tablespoons)
Cake - Combine wet and dry Ingredients
Add ⅓ of the dry ingredients into the wet. Use a rubber spatula to fold in the dry ingredients. Doing this by hand helps prevent over mixing. Mixing the dry ingredients in ⅓ at a time helps to ensure that everything is incorporated evenly without having to over mix.
Bake
Using a large cookie scoop, fill cupcake liners ⅘ of the way full.
Bake in the center of the oven for 25 minutes. If you have a convection oven I find having it on regular bake mode (no fan) produces better results.
Icing
While the cupcakes bake take the cream cheese out of the fridge to soften it.
Make the Brown Butter: In a thick bottomed saucepan or skillet on medium heat: melt the butter. Once Butter is melted, stir continuously, the butter will foam up and the butter solids will start to toast and brown up. The butter will start to have a nutty aroma. At this point you are done and can remove the butter from the stove and into the fridge to chill the butter. Chill for one hour to firm up.Note:You can make this icing without browning the butter but if you've ever had browned butter then you will know that it's totally worth the effort.
Using a stand mixer or electric hand mixer: Blend the Cream Cheese and Firmed up Brown Butter together. Add in Sugar. Blend. Add in Vanilla and Salt. Whip to Combine and you're all done - easy hey?!
Decorate
You can pipe this icing on to the cupcakes but cream cheese icing is not as stiff as buttercream. So, just know not to expect a tall swirl like you can achieve with buttercream. I like to use a 1M Tip and start in the middle and work my way outwards to create a simple flower. You can also use a spoon and smooth the icing on top. It's a very forgiving icing to work with. If you would like to top with walnuts simply crush them and sprinkle on top.