The Story:
When I was 3, I learned how to pull up a carrot from the garden.
We lived on top of a big hill in Oregon that was covered in pine trees and green fields. We could see Mt. Hood, the Willamette river, and all the Portland bridges outside our kitchen window. There was a huge backyard that wrapped around our house and a giant cherry tree right in the middle. But by the steps out by the porch we had a little vegetable garden. I tried to yank up a few carrots by the green stems, but that only worked about half the time. Sometimes I ended up with an orange carrot covered in dirt and the other times I ended up in the dirt with a fist full of pale green leaves.
Coming Up Carrots Cupcakes
Ingredients
Chocolate Cake:
- 1 box Devil's Food of Chocolate cake mix
- 3 eggs
- 1/2 C. oil
- 1 C. buttermilk or milk
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
Chocolate Frosting (dirt):
- 3/4 C. butter softened
- 1/2 C. unsweetened cocoa powder
- 2 Tbsp. milk
- 2 tsp. vanilla
- 3-4 C. powdered sugar
- Oreos crushed (about 15)
Mascarpone Filling (carrot):
- 16 oz. mascarpone cheese 2 8 oz. containers
- 1 C. powdered sugar
- orange food dye
Sour Punch Straws for stems
Instructions
-
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line pans with cupcake liners.
-
2. Sift cake mix into a small bowl and set aside.
-
3. In a large bowl, combine eggs, oil, buttermilk and vanilla extract until smooth.
-
4. Add cake mix and stir well.
-
5. Fill cupcake liners 3/4 full and bake for 17-22 minutes or until an inserted knife comes out clean.
-
6. Chocolate frosting: Beat butter until smooth Add cocoa, milk and vanilla extract. Beat again. Slowly add powdered sugar until you reach your desired consistency.
-
7. Mascarpone filling: Combine mascarpone and powdered sugar until smooth. Add as much orange food dye as needed. (You can use a cream cheese or a plain buttercream if you don't want to use mascarpone, but believe me...it's AMAZING.)
-
8. To assemble, cut a hole out of the tops of your cooled cupcakes, spread chocolate frosting around the hole and roll in crushed Oreos. Use a round tip to fill the hole with orange mascarpone and pipe it up above the level of your "dirt" to make it look like a carrot. Take a Sour Punch Straw, cut off a small piece (about 3/4 of an inch) and slice the majority of it into three pieces the long way (see photo). Push it into the top of the "carrot" to make your stem.
Recipe Notes
If you don't have a piping bag and tip to make the carrot, use a zip lock bag and snip the corner off and use it like a piping bag!
Adorable!!! Love how those turned out.
These are adorable!
Love the memories you share with us. You are truly a cupcake artist. Thank you
Absolutely enjoy your site! You are my “cupcake Artist”..you definetly can have your cake and eat it too!!!
IHi Lizzie!
Just received your new cookbook in them mail from Amazon. Love it love it! Have a tiny little cupcake business and am replacing a lot of my recipes with yours — they are soooo good!
Oh good! So happy you’re enjoying it 🙂
I agree these are adorable!!!
Clever!
oh my gosh those are sooo cute!!! what a great idea!!
These are so cute!
These are absolutely perfect Lizzy! I’ve never tried mascarpone in a filling but I imagine its fabulous!
The marscarpone filling sounds divine!!
What a cute idea and just in time for Easter! I have officially become the “dessert lady” for all my family and friends gatherings and I just love it. I’m always looking for new ideas and this is just adorable and so clever. You should know, Lizzy, that you are truly an inspiration. Not just to me, but to a LOT of people. I’m only just entering this sweet world of delicious delights but I’m loving every moment of it and I think I finally found my passion. I’m so glad I stumbled upon your blog. I will certainly be following you from here on out and you can be sure this won’t be the last time you hear from me! lol
Sweetly,
Katie
Well aren’t you just the sweetest? Thank you so much Katie!
Hi Lizzy! -Do you know of any online websites where i can buy really good cupcake liners in bulk?
I usually buy mine from thebakerskitchen.net I’ll buy the sets of 500 grease proof liners, dark brown or blue are my fav
Hi! There Lizzy, this carrot cupcake looks yummy, thanks. Will definitely make it one day.
Hello! I was wondering if you could make this as a cake and if so do you need to change anything? Thanks!
Yes, it makes a great cake and you don’t need to change anything! You could make a whole garden of carrots in the cake!
These are SO cute! Probably the cutest Easter cupcake I’ve ever seen.
I made these for Easter and am proud to say that they looked just like yours. I also got my copy of your book and just absolutely love it. It just makes me happy to look through it. Can’t wait to try the new recipes. The book is beautiful. Your pictures are wonderful. Thanks for sharing.
Oh good! Yes, these cupcakes are so cute and totally easy to make and for them to look like the photo! Be sure to review the book on Amazon if that’s where you bought it. Happy Easter!
These are so cute and your pictures make them look easy to make. Thank you!
We’re having a party at Tumbleweed Contessas – What’d You Do This Weekend? I’d love it if you would share these with everybody. http://www.tumbleweedcontessa.com/blog/
Have a wonderful week,
Linda
could you make a marzipan/ready-to-roll icing carrot and then place it on top or does it have to be piped cream cheese? I am out of cream cheese (as i have continously commented in other recipes! lol x) but i have a LOT of marzipan/regular icing; i was really busy at uni so i asked my dad to order some marzipan or just regualr icing for me (about 6 packs), and by accident, he ordered 60!!!!!!!!!!! He’s a dopey one, bless him!
So i guess i better make the best out of it lol!
Plz answer!
Kierz x
Yes of course you could use that instead!
Honestly, these are ridiculously cute!
And for the commenter just above me Kiera I would say, If you’ve got bucket loads of marzipan to use up you could try making just a regular cake mix and putting half in the tin, add a fairly thick layer of rolled out marzipan and then top with the rest of the mix. We do that quite often and it’s really nice. Not as pretty as these carrots of course but sound like you have enough marzipan to do both (and more!)
How many cupcakes does this yield?? Thanks! 🙂
20-24!