Honey Sweetened Carrot Cake Cupcakes

Want to enjoy desserts without feeling guilty? And feel good knowing your kids are eating something nourishing as well as super tasty? These honey sweetened carrot cake cupcakes definitely fit that bill. With no processed sugars, a cup of carrots, and a healthier frosting, this is a dessert you and your family will love.

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Ingredients for carrot cake cupcakes

• All purpose flour – organic, unbleached.
• Baking powder – aluminum free if you can find it, or buy it online. Maybe I’m oblivious but I only recently realized most baking powder brands have aluminum in it…
• Baking soda
• Salt – we only use Redmond’s Real Salt in our home. A good quality unrefined mineral salt goes a long way towards nourishing your body.
• Egg – eggs from pastured chickens, or those who have the pasture brought to them, are going to be the most nourishing eggs. If you can afford them, buy good quality eggs.
• Yogurt – we make this ourselves so that it’s super cheap and packed with live gut healthy bacteria. Don’t have yogurt? Add in sour cream, buttermilk, or some sourdough discard instead.
• Butter – you can brown the butter for these cupcakes if you’d like a little extra depth of flavor. Both browned and simply melted butter make for such a delicious end result. You can sub the butter for coconut or avocado oil if needed.
• Honey – buy local if you can. Honey is one of the easiest foods to get started with buying local. You don’t have to buy half a cow’s worth of it, which makes honey much less intimidating for those of us who are used to shopping at the grocery store. 🙂
• Carrots – buying the carrot roots whole, not the ones cut down into smaller, prettier pieces is going to be the most affordable option. Plus this gives us carrot scraps that we can add to our broth pot.
• Cinnamon
• Vanilla – the real stuff, please.

How to make Carrot Cupcakes

To start, preheat your oven to 350 and prepare your muffin tin either by lining it with cupcake liners or greasing it. Set it aside and move on to making your cake batter.

In a medium sized mixing bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon.

In a separate, larger bowl whisk together the yogurt, honey, melted or browned butter, egg, and vanilla. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix it all up until it’s fully incorporated. Then lastly add in the grated carrots and stir.

Pour the batter into your prepared muffin tin, each should be filled 2/3-3/4 of the way. Bake for 20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Let the cupcakes cool in the muffin tin for a few minutes before taking them out to cool further. These are a very soft cupcake, especially when hot out of the oven.

Let them cool completely before topping with frosting. (Or just eat them as is, they are soooo yummy 😋)

Yogurt Cream Cheese Frosting

This is optional, you can eat these honey sweetened carrot cake cupcakes just the way they are or use your favorite frosting to top these off. If you’re looking for a healthier option for a frosting, here’s what you’ll need:

• Cream cheese
• Yogurt – greek yogurt, or strain your homemade yogurt so it’s extra thick
• Honey or maple syrup
• Vanilla
• Salt

This is a soft frosting, but it’s so yummy you’re kids will love it. Add all of the ingredients into a mixing bowl and whisk until fully combined. You could also use a beater to make this a bit easier.

Pipe this on top of your cooled cupcakes and enjoy! I hope you all love these carrot cake cupcakes as much as we do! Let me know how you guys like it in the comments below 🙂

Happy Baking! 😊