Healthy Eyes, Rottin' Teeth

Today I received word that I have a job as a checker at Central Market. After hearing this, I felt a burst of productivity and decided to make the most of the day.

I went to the store.
I started knitting a new hat- Using more than one color, woo-hoo!
I mowed the lawn.
I did two loads of laundry.

I made carrot cake cupcakes with maple-cream cheese frosting.

(Recipe courtesy of SmittenKitchen)

Grating carrots was by far the worst part. I started out with a large grater and soon went on to my micro plane which worked a lot better for me. I was going for really fine grated carrots and smoother batter. I only grated my fingers 3 times, and burned myself once. Not too shabby.

The icing wound up a bit to soft for me to do a fancy icing job. I cooled it well over 30 minutes and put in nearly double the powdered sugar (shhhh, don't tell).

All-in-all these are quite deeeelish. Specially since I put hardly any nuts and only a few raisons... Keepin' it plain.

Carrot Cake with Maple Cream Cheese Frosting

Makes 24 cupcakes (or one two-layer cake, instructions at end)

2 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon ground ginger
2 cups sugar
1 1/4 cups canola oil
4 large eggs
3 cups grated peeled carrots
1 cups coarsely chopped walnuts (optional)
1/2 cup raisins (optional)

Preheat oven to 350&176;F.

Line 24 cupcake molds with papers, or butter and flour them.

Whisk flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger in medium bowl to blend. Whisk sugar and oil in large bowl until well blended. Whisk in eggs 1 at a time. Add flour mixture and stir until blended. Stir in carrots, walnuts and raisins, if using them. Divide batter among cupcake molds, filling 3/4 of each.

Bake cupcakes 14 to 18 minutes, or until a tester inserted into the center of one comes out clean. Let cool in pans for five minutes or so, then transfer cakes to a cooling rack. Let cool completely before icing them.

Maple Cream Cheese Frosting

Two (8-ounce) packages cream cheese, softened
1 stick unsalted butter, room temperature
2 cups confectioners’ sugar
1/4 cup pure maple syrup

In a stand mixer beat all the ingredients on medium until fluffy. Chill the frosting for 10 to 20 minutes, until it has set up enough to spread smoothly.