Enjoy a wonderful carrot cake, but put the creamy and delicious frosting as a surpirse on the inside. This will help keep the muffin extra moist on the inside and will make it even more fabulous!
Cake:
1 c. granulated sugar
⅔ c. vegetable oil
2 large eggs, room temperature
1 t. vanilla extract
½ lb. grated carrots, about 1½–2 cups
¾ t. salt
1¼ t. cinnamon
1¼ c. all-purpose flour
1 t. baking soda
Filling:
8 oz. package cream cheese, room temperature
¼ c. granulated sugar
1 t. pure vanilla extract
pinch of salt
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line a muffin tin with paper liners.
Grate the carrots or pulse them in a food processor until they are very finely chopped, set aside.
In a large mixing bowl, whisk sugar, vegetable oil, eggs and vanilla together until completely blended, then stir in carrots, salt and cinnamon. Sift flour and baking soda on top of the wet ingredients, gently fold until completely blended. Set aside.
In a separate medium sized bowl, add the cream cheese filling ingredients, whisk to blend until perfectly smooth. Set aside.
Add about 2 T. of the carrot cake batter into the bottom of each muffin liner and then drop one heaping teaspoon of the cream cheese filling into the center of the batter. Use the remaining cake batter to fill each muffin to within about ¼ inch from the top.
Bake 18–20 minutes, until the sides of the muffin are firm to the touch. Remove the cakes from the oven and cool them on a rack for about 10 minutes.
Fill a pastry bag with a small round tip or resealable bag with the corner snipped with your remaining cream cheese filling, pipe into the hole where the filling broke through the top of the muffin. Serve warm or at room temperature.