Food: Carrot Cake Cupcakes

Last night I made these Carrot Cake cupcakes, and realized two things:

1) Ina Garten sure can cook.
2) Most cream cheese icing recipes call for way too much powdered sugar.

I was skeptical of this recipe – everything about it seemed off. I thought it called for too many carrots, the batter seemed way too dry, and I wasn’t pleased that I had to use vegetable oil. But I have to hand it to Ina, she knows what she’s talking about. These were fragrant and tender – the moisture in the carrots really did the trick.

I did deviate from Ina’s icing recipe, as you might gather from Point #2. Here’s the ratio I like: 1 package cream cheese to 1/2 stick unsalted butter to 3/4 cup powdered sugar. More than that is just too sweet for me.

Voila.