Carrot Cake Cupcakes

Have you tried the new White Chocolate Carrot Cake M&M's?

If you are a fan of carrot cake and you haven't tried them yet, you should. I have to admit I was a bit skeptical when my husband brought them home, but they really do taste like carrot cake! I am a bit ashamed to admit that we have now polished off 2 bags of them. The second bag was supposed to be our treat for Easter. Ooops!  Anyway, these scrumptiously addictive little morsels ended up making us crave the real thing. Now everyone in my family will tell you that my Grandma makes the best carrot cake ever.  But there are only two of us here that would eat cake, and I wasn't sure that we needed a whole big two-layer cake all to ourselves. So I thought, why not see if I could turn it into cupcakes?

I went to Your Cup of Cake, the cupcake blog I have been following, and used her recipe for carrot cupcakes. It turns out that her cupcake recipe was quite similar to my Grandma's cake recipe, so that made me happy. I didn't use her frosting recipe though, because the frosting that my Grandma puts on her cake is what makes it so special. Unfortunately for you, I don't think I'm allowed to share this family secret or I might get disowned....so you'll just have to trust me when I say it's delicious.

I was happy with how they turned out. The cupcakes were nice and moist. My picky two year-old even approved of them (minus the "white stuff" and using the pseudonym of "muffin"). I even tried my hand at piping the frosting on to make them look a little nicer. I didn't really have the tools to do it, so I improvised with a ziplock baggie...well actually 2 or 3 since they kept breaking on me. I'm happy to report that I since have acquired an actual piping bag and tips, so hopefully my next try will look a bit nicer and be a less messy process. A few orange sprinkles on top for a finishing touch.

So if you pick up a bag of these M&M's, and then get a craving for carrot cake like we did, you should try these--they hit the spot!