Carrot Cupcakes With Walnut & Ginger Topping

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.

1 Box Simply Organic Carrot Cake Mix

1/2 of a 15 oz. can of Organic Sweet Potato Puree

1/4 cup Organic Raisins, heaping

1/4 cup Sweetened Coconut

1/2 cup Shredded Organic Carrots

2 Large Organic Eggs

1/2 Cup Water

1 Tbsp. Olive Oil

1/8 Cup Chopped Walnuts, finely chopped

1 Tbsp. of  Crystallized Ginger, finely chopped

Cream Cheese Frosting of your choice.

I used Pillsbury Creamy Supreme Cream Cheese frosting because it is gluten-free and dairy free. If you’re not dairy free you can easily make homemade cream cheese frosting with cream cheese, powdered sugar, vanilla, and milk. You could also try the non-dairy cream cheese, it has a similar texture to cream cheese but I feel it lacks the cheesy flavor and tartness of the real cheese. If you’re worried about the partially hydrogenated oils, you could just simply do a vanilla frosting with powdered sugar, butter, and vanilla, and skip the cream cheese flavor.

Pour cake mix into medium glass bowl. Add sweet potato puree, raisins, coconut, shredded carrots, eggs, water, and olive oil. Stir just until combined and batter is evenly moist.

Next, line a muffin pan with cupcake papers, spray lightly with non-stick spray (I didn’t spray mine and they stuck to the paper a little). Fill with batter about 3/4 full.

Place in pre-heated oven for 30 minutes, remove from muffin pan and place on cooling rack until completely cool.

Finely chop the nuts and crystallized ginger.

Frost with your choice of frosting and sprinkle lightly with walnuts and crystallized ginger. A little bit of ginger goes a long way, so remember to just sprinkle a tiny amount on each cake.