Carrot Cupcakes

What to do with 3 children sleeping or playing quietly on a sick day?*

*yes I can't believe they were quiet and/or sleeping either. They MUST have been sick.

Bake. That's what I do.

I bake to relax, to kill time, to make me happy. Its my go-to stress reliever. There's something almost meditative for me about the process of measuring, mixing, folding, adding and the end result is something warm and delicious. And it gives an amazing sense of achievement when they turn out just right.

The Little and Friday baking book was the inspiration for these but instead of the cake I decided to make some little cakes for the kids lunchboxes this week. This adds to their vegetable component of their diet too, albeit wrapped in sugar! I've also substituted a few ingredients as I didn't have candied orange peel, or any walnuts and dates. Instead I used passionfruit, prunes and coconut flakes alongside the chocolate and carrot. This gave the cakes a lovely sweet bite with a bit of zing and crunch in there too. I think I prefer the prunes to the dates for the flavour anyway.

Topped with a cream cheese icing and a little passionfruit pulp or an extra sprinkle of coconut these beauties are well worth serving up as a treat for the carrot cake lover in your life.

Carrot Cake Recipe - slightly adapted from Treats From Little and Friday

2 cups flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp nutmeg

1 tsp ground ginger

4 eggs

1 cup oil

1 cup brown sugar

2 cups grated carrot

100g good-quality chocolate

1/2 cup chopped prunes

3 large passionfruit. 2 for the cake, leaving 1 for garnish.

1/2 cup shaved coconut

Preheat oven to 160deg C. Line cupcake tins with papers or grease x1 23cm tin.

Sift flour, baking powder and spices together in a large bowl.

In a separate bowl, beat eggs until combined then add oil and brown sugar and beat to combine.

Add grated carrot, prunes, passionfruit, chocolate and coconut and combine. Add all this to the flour mixture and stir to combine.

Spoon tablespoon sized amounts into the cupcake tins and bake for 30mins. This made me roughly 18 cupcakes.

Let them cool completely and then ice with a cream cheese icing.

Garnish with leftover passionfruit or coconut.

I HIGHLY recommend getting Treats From Little and Friday if you are in the market for a lovely well presented and easy to follow baking book.