I had a craving for carrot cake the other day and found a delicious recipe that I thought would still taste good after I took out most of the refined sugar. Surprisingly it worked. I made these in both regular size cupcakes and minis. I indulged in a mini cupcake and it was worth it. These are very good. Even Alan, who is a sweet treat addict, liked these. By the way, he’s my true test if a sweet treat is really good or not, he considers himself a bit of a dessert connoisseur
I found the recipe over here, but fine tuned it a bit to suit our family.
The original recipe called for 1 1/3 cups of sugar for the cake. I read many of the comments that said they reduced the sugar to 3/4 cup with good results. I took it down to a 1/2 cup and it still tasted really good. The pineapple is sweet which helps. If you remove the pineapple from the recipe you may want to increase the sugar back to 3/4 cup.
I reduced the powdered sugar in the frosting as well and added milk to make it more or less a glaze. The original recipe calls for 3 cups of powdered sugar. I only made a half of batch so should have used 1 1/2 cups. I ended up only using 3/4 cup and we liked it. in all honesty it could have probably been reduced a little more. However, since I’ve cut most sugar out of my life I’m finding that I don’t like things as sweet. This is definitely something you will want to adjust for your own taste buds.
Carrot Cake Cupcakes
- Cake:
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 1/2 cup sweetened or unsweetened flaked coconut
- 1/3 cup chopped pecans
- 2 teaspoons baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon nutmeg
- 3 tablespoons canola oil
- 2 large eggs
- 2 cups grated carrot
- 1 1/2 cups canned crushed pineapple, drained
- Cooking spray
- *********
- Glaze/Frosting
- 1 tablespoon butter, softened
- 4-ounce cream cheese, softened
- 3 /4 cup powdered sugar
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1/3 cup milk
- Combine flour, sugar, coconut, pecans, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg together. In a separate bowl mix oil & eggs until well mixed. Add egg, carrot, and pineapple to flour mixture and combine well.
- Fill cupcake tins about 3/4 full.
- Bake at 350 for about 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
- Cool on a wire rack.
- *********
- For glaze/frosting:
- Mix all ingredients together. You can adjust the thickness of the glaze by adding or reducing the amount of milk you use. Frost cupcakes.
Enjoy!
Saw these lovelies via Fridgg. I’m a carrot cake fiend and I’m looking forward to trying these, especially since they’re low sugar.
Hi Marisa, thanks for stopping by. We really love this cake with the reduced sugar. Its not super sweet which I really appreciate. Enjoy!
I love carrot cake! I need to try this, I am always looking for healthier baked goods 🙂