Carrot Cupcakes, #TheCakeSliceBakers

The Cake Slice Bakers are a group of bakers from around the world. Every month a new challenge arrives...Currently, we are presented with the opportunity to bake one of four preselected recipes from Southern Living’s The Southern Cake Book.

This Ninja Baker’s winning choice?
Carrot cupcakes!
(Adapted from The Southern Cake Book's Apple Pecan Carrot Cake recipe.)

In my junior year of high school I spotted carrot cake for the first time on a newly arrived from America Denny’s restaurant dessert menu. At the time, I was more fascinated with the cool boys on the basketball team who’d walk in after practice. Otherwise carrot cake was absent from the Tokyo scene. Especially in the late 1970s.

After a bit of research on Google Japan, I see more recipes in Japanese for carrot cake. However, the shops that actually sell carrot cakes appear to be few and far between or owned by foreigners. One shop’s site was in – of course, Japanese – and Arabic! Tomi’s Shortbread House, The British Pastry Shop also serves carrot cake.

Would you ever imagine that carrot cake was British in origin? I always thought it was an American classic. As it turns out this British import came to the US in the mid-1900s. Apparently the carrot was used to sweeten baked goods, as sugar was costly. 

Who knew? Carrot cake is a British import!

Anyway, it makes sense that carrot cake would not appeal to a Japanese palate. Cakes in Japan tend to be fluffy and light. (There is a strong Parisian patisserie influence.) So, a carrot cake densely packed with the orange veggie would not wear the most popular cake crown.

Craving carrot cupcakes in Tokyo?
Try the newly opened Magnolia Bakery or Tomi's  Shortbread House.

Japanese cakes truly are a taste of Heaven. But I’m also a huge carrot cake fan. Carrot cake conjures up memories of my sister and I sharing a huge slice at a coffee shop near UCLA. During my college days, my dear older sister would drive up from San Diego. Somehow the rich carrot cake with its healthy dose of nuts, raisins melts with the nourishing and nurturing sister chats we shared.

The Southern Cake Book's recipe for carrot cake omits raisins.
Would you add raisins?

Sooo, when The Cake Slice Bakers presented the option of baking a carrot cake packed with apples and pecan, I tagged the recipe in The Southern Cake Book. What makes this carrot cake unique is the apple cider caramel glaze….which is…drumroll please, topped with a mascarpone / whipped cream frosting!

Apple cider caramel glaze with a swirl of mascarpone topping
puts carrot cupcakes in a whole another category of deliciousness!

Slivers of shredded carrots and Fuji apples and toasted pecans speckle this moist carrot cake. The Southern Cake Book recipe calls for apple pie spice. Have you ever heard of such a spice? As it isn’t a staple in this Ninja Baker’s pantry, I looked at several recipes online and created my own. And sooo glad I did. The carrot cupcakes’ spice element is present but not overpowering. I do hope you enjoy the carrot cake…It’s a time consuming dessert. But tasks like grating carrots and apples passes in the twinkle of an eye when chatting with dear ones…like sisters.

Carrot cupcake loving sisters in San Francisco.