Class 2 at Grossmont-carrot cupcakes

This week was nice and simple, I've made tons of carrot cupcakes recently, so it didnt seem that amazing, but it was interesting to see chef's take on the carrot cake, his recipe was really heavy on the carrots, and used currants, since it was cupcakes he figured he'd go small on everything. Most of the fat was replaced with yoghurt and it wasnt missed. Sometimes this makes a muffiney cake, but in this case it was really nice and very healthy, until we added the frosting!!



I'm all in a quandry about whether this is my favourite, or I like the delia smith recipe. Aagh!


The cream cheese frosting was also really interesting, it had a little white chocolate in it, which apparently stabilizes the frosting a little more. I prefer using less butter and sugar, although it does give a slightly runnier frosting.

Our group learned a very important lesson about the mixer too, our blade was too low and was rubbing against the bowl making the frosting grey, so we had to throw the whole batch out and start again. All it needed was a little adjustment.





We were also taught to mix our raisins and carrots with the flour to get an even distribution in the cake. This is particularly important when you just have, say a few nuts in a cake.









The cakes were piped with a little swirl of the delicious frosting.















Marzipan was dyed orange to make a carrot

More was dyed green and leaves were made

My carrots

Some finished cakes.

Carrot Cupcakes -James Foran

makes 1 dozen

350f conventional oven, 25 minute

Dry

9oz carrots, grated

9oz all purpose flour

3/4 tsp baking powder

3/4 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp allspice

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp fresh grated nutmeg

2 oz currants

1 1/2 tsp fresh grated ginger

Wet

1/2 tsp kosher salt

7 1/2 oz sugar

1 1/2 oz brown sugar

2 eggs

4 oz brown sugar

4 oz oil

Preheat oven to 350f

Sift the flour, baking soda and baking powder together and mix with the other dry ingredients. Whisk the wet ingredients together for a couple minutes then combine, keeping stirring to a minimum. Scoop into 12 cupcakes and bake at 350f for around 25 mins

Cool for 5 mins in the pan, then on a rack.

White chocolate cream cheese frosting

8oz cream cheese

1oz butter

3/4 tsp lemon juice

1/2 tsp vanilla

3 1/2 oz powdered sugar

2 oz white chocolate, melted

Beat together the cream cheese and butter until smooth, add the lemon juice and vanilla and beat, then add the sugar, slowly mixing until combined, then beat for another minute. Add the white chocolate to combine then pipe onto the cooled cupcakes. Add a little marzipan carrot if you like!

Stay tuned for a monster post next week, we're doing mousse cakes, a 2 week process!