What's up, Doc?: Carrot (Cake) Cupcakes

I have a funny thing about carrot cake.  My best friend likes them a whole lot.  She loves them with cream cheese frosting. She thinks it’s hard to find a good one. It was the first “sweet” thing she ever ate, at the age of one.  She and I lived different lives. 

I like carrots.  They’re good for your eyes (beta-carotene for the win!). They are crunchy and sweet. If you eat a whole bag of baby carrots on a car ride, you want to vomit when you reach your destination. They can fill you up and make you less hungry. You can eat them with some sugar as a kid (for no reason at all).

If you cook carrots, I’m not a big fan.  If you make carrots into a cake, I am less inclined (READ: NOT INCLINED AT ALL) to eat the cake.  Add cream cheese… you’ve lost me entirely.  But alas, I am running out of cupcakes that I truly want to eat in the book, so I made these.

I think the coolest part is that Martha told me to “finely grate” and I was too lazy, so you can see the carrot inside! But maybe I’m just weird and don’t eat carrot cake and know that’s how it comes.  Anyway, these were the first week of March.  I’m behind.  

This seems like the most liked cupcake on my blog.  I've decided to write the recipes for all of them, so I am taking my sweet time (I've made a lot of cupcakes) to add them.  I'll go through backwards after this.

While writing this, I realized that I modified a lot of this cupcake...  WHOOPS! I forgot about it because they seems to be liked.

Recipe: Yields 24.
1. Preheat oven to 325.  Whisk together 1 pound carrots (shredded or finely grated or whatever your heart desires), 3 large eggs, one-third cup buttermilk,  1.5 cup vegetable oil, (some? a teaspoon? maybe two?) of vanilla extract, and some (.5 cup) raisins if you want (my best friend always hated raisins in carrot cake and she is my go-to with it, so I omitted it.). In a separate bowl, mix together 3 cups all purpose flour, 1 tsp baking soda, 2 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp ground ccinnamon, 1 tsp ground ginger, and one-eighth tsp ground cloves. Stir flour mixture into carrot mixture until well combined.
2.  Divide batter evenly (.75 full)  among tins.  Bakes 23 to 28 minutes, rotating half way.
(3.  You were supposed to frost with a spatula to top with toasted coconut, but this was already a hard enough cupcake for me to eat with the cream cheese and healthy things, so I put with in a bag with a tip and tried to make them look pretty.)

FROSTING:
With a mixter, beat 2 sticks unsalted butter and 12 oz of cream cheese together. Add 4 cups of sifted confectioners' sugar (WITH A HALF CUP AT A TIME!!) to the mixture.  Once it's all mixed, add 1 tsp vanilla.  DONE. (The co-workers looooved this.)