Vegan Carrot Cake Cupcakes

These vegan carrot cake cupcakes are moist and rich and packed with flavor. Topped with a delicious orange buttercream and orange zest.

I’m going to town on the vegan carrot cake cupcakes you guys!

We set a new record in having to do 3 photoshoots to get this one right. We’re no stranger to having to repeat photoshoots, things just do go wrong sometimes. But 3? This was a new record.

Somehow the photos just weren’t working out well at all (the light wasn’t good, our props weren’t contrasting well, colors weren’t meshing properly etc!)

So in the process of testing this recipe (2 times), and then shooting and reshooting (total of 3 times), I have made these cupcakes 5 times in the past couple of weeks.

We are overrun with cupcakes! Not that anyone is actually complaining around these parts. My sister is a BIG fan and comes around to grab a few here and there, and Jaye has his daily cupcake fix, but still, we are overrun! I have an entire shelf of the fridge dedicated to these cupcakes right now.

They’re more like muffins with frosting on though I must say. There is something very muffin-ish about them. See how they look above? Like muffins right? They look like muffins, act like muffins and taste like muffins!

What’s the difference between cupcakes and muffins anyway? Is it just that muffins are usually not frosted and are a tad more wholesome?

Well these guys taste pretty wholesome! With the walnuts and the orange zest and all that carrot goodness, these definitely give you that wholesome muffin vibe.

So you can have them either way. If you want to have them as muffins, just don’t bother to frost them! They are SOOOO good on their own. They don’t actually need frosting at all.

But if you want to turn your wholesome muffins into deliciously frosted cupcakes, then frost the little guys.

But don’t misunderstand me when I say ‘wholesome’. They might seem pretty wholesome and I’m very happy with the ingredient list, but let’s be real, baked goods are not really designed to be health food. 

And that’s perfectly okay!

This recipe is based on my other carrot cake recipes, like my vegan carrot cake and my gluten-free carrot cake cupcakes.

And one of the questions I received about my vegan carrot cake was regarding the relative shortage of wet ingredients. This is because the recipe doesn’t use any added plant milks, so it’s just the oil, flax eggs and vanilla/vinegar etc that provide the wet ingredients.

And yes, this is exactly right! This is because the raw carrots added to it – while seeming like a pretty firm, solid ingredient – are actually also a wet ingredient! Once you add in those grated carrots and the moisture starts to seep out into your batter, it gets to the right level pretty fast.

Nonetheless you end up with a very thick batter here and that’s entirely okay. In fact it’s what you’re going for.

So don’t freak out when it starts out so thick it’s like it’s not going to form into a batter, just stir a bit more and those ingredients will start to merge together and form into a batter. A thick batter, but a batter nonetheless!

However, I always recommend weighing out your flour. It’s the trickiest measurement in baking and for the best accuracy, it’s always worth weighing it out on a kitchen scale.

Storing and Freezing

These carrot cake cupcakes lose none of their moistness or flavor when kept (covered) in the fridge and they last for at least a week, though of course the fresher the better.

They are also freezer friendly (frosted or unfrosted) for up to 3 months!

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