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Claire Saffitz's Ultimate Carrot Cupcake with Cream Cheese Buttercream | Dessert Person



I want to thank our sponsor Gestura for today’s episode. Gestura creates beautiful tools for both home cooks and professional chefs. Today, they are launching their stunning Esa Offset Spatula. To learn more about their products, visit and use code CLAIRE for free shipping (available for US residents).

Claire Saffitz’s Ultimate Carrot Cupcake with Cream Cheese Buttercream | Dessert Person

In today’s episode, Claire Saffitz tackles classic Carrot Cake Cupcakes with a unique twist. She introduces a new frosting called Cream Cheese Buttercream. She may have created this new Frosting. It’s delicious and it’s a fantastic way to elevate your baked goods, especially these timeless cupcakes. Follow along for the recipe!

#clairesaffitz #carrotcake #cupcake

Easy Carrot Cupcakes
Makes 12

1 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon kosher salt
¼ teaspoon allspice
½ cup granulated sugar
⅓ cup light brown sugar
⅔ cup neutral oil
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1½ cups grated raw carrots, chopped
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
½ cup walnuts or pecans, choppped

Cream Cheese Swiss Meringue Buttercream
Makes about 4 cups (enough for frosting a 3-layer, 8-inch cake)
Special Equipment: Stand mixer

8 oz (226g) full-fat, stabilizer-free cream cheese, such as Nancy’s brand, at room temperature
8 oz (226g / 2 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into tablespoon-sized pieces, at room temperature
120g (about ½ cup / 120g) egg whites
1 cup (200g) granulated sugar
½ teaspoon Diamond Crystal kosher salt or ½ teaspoon Morton kosher salt
Pinch of cream of tartar
2 teaspoons vanilla paste

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Video Series:
Producer/Director: Vincent Cross
Camera Operator: Calvin Robertson
Editor/Motion Graphics: Hal McFall

Animation Credits:
Character Designer/Animator/Backgrounds: Jack Sherry
Character Rigger: Johara Dutton

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40 Comments

  1. I see you changed the intro to match your current kitchen, but I wish you had kept the croquembouche as one of the things your cat takes an interest in. The attempted swipe at it has always made me laugh.

  2. Hmmm, my wedding cake lady made cream cheese butter cream for our carrot cake short wedding cake on site with air conditioning. She not only assembled on site, she made the cream cheese butter cream there, too. She brought the chilled cakes with her. It was delicious. That was 1984. St Louis.

  3. I've noticed than when cream cheese is frozen, it tends to "curdle" when it's defrosted. I wonder if that's possibly a way to get around the stabilizers? To the naked eye it looks like solids and liquids have separated, so I think it'd be possible to press it to remove part of the moisture at that point.

  4. This looks so tasty; I'll def try this recipe at some point! However, I wonder if using pressed cream cheese is really the only way to make this frosting — perhaps the cream cheese could be replaced with mascarpone for a similar and much speedier frosting? If I understood her explanation correctly, Claire said that the cream cheese has to be pressed because in its "natural" state its fat content is too low, making it hard to mix with the butter and create an emulsion. Therefore, I wonder if mascarpone cheese might be a good substitute, as it by default has a fat content of about 80%. Using mascarpone instead of normal cream cheese in the frosting might be a way to achieve a similar result in a much faster way 🤔 I may have to give that a try at some point.

  5. My husband’s birthday favorite is carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. Don’t get me wrong – I worship at the alter of Claire! It took a LONG time for the merengue to form peaks, but what resulted when mixed with the butter/ cream cheese definitely tastes more like buttercream than cream cheese. I let hubby taste before frosting the cake and he said it was good, but he couldn’t taste cream cheese. So, I ended up whipping this buttercream with 8 oz. of Philadelphia cream cheese for more of a traditional cream cheese frosting. Again, a great buttercream, but…

  6. Just made these. They are so awesome. I felt like Claire was directing my icing techniques…never has my bowl been SOOO clean. Thanks for the tofu pressing tip, I pressed 3 ounces of water out, lovely , rich, not too sweet icing. And the carrot cake was excellent also, probably due to that increased surface area after shredding AND chopping carrots. Fun baking day.

  7. Why was I expecting her to do the sandwich method when she was about to eat the cupcake 😅 great frosting recipe, will definitely give it a try!

    EDIT: Ok apparently I'm impatient, she DID do the sandwich method 😅

  8. i LOVE this recipe! the thing with cream cheese growing up in europe and now living in the states is: i find european style cream cheese is usually very natural, little to no stabilizers whereas american brands like philadelphia (love!) are much thicker in texture and just different in what it means to be cream cheese. i guess it might be comparable to how european butter (higher butter fat content) differs from american style butter.

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