Author Notes
I love a whoopie pie - they're portable cakes. I had a ridiculous amount of carrots stored up from my Winter CSA. I knew I wanted carrot cake with all that local produce, but I didn't want to make my standard sheets cake. I also am attempting to get back in shape, so I wanted a lighter version. I came up with this and added some cinnamon to the frosting... it's just addicting. Base cake/frosting recipes adapted from Cooking Light. —lighterandlocal
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Ingredients
- Cake
-
9 tablespoons
unsalted butter
-
2/3 cup
packed brown sugar
-
1/2 cup
granulated sugar
-
2
eggs
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2
egg whites
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2 teaspoons
vanilla extract
-
2 cups
all-purpose flour
-
2 teaspoons
baking soda
-
1.5 teaspoons
ground cinnamon
-
dash
cloves and nutmeg
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1/4 teaspoon
table salt
-
3/4 cup
buttermilk
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2 cups
finely shredded carrot
- Frosting
-
1/2 cup
1/3 less fat cream cheese
-
1/4 cup
unsalted butter, softened
-
2 teaspoons
vanilla extract
-
1 teaspoon
ground cinnamon
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1/8 teaspoon
salt
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2 cups
powdered sugar
Directions
-
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Now you've got two options with this - butter up muffin tins and make carrot cake muffins, which you'll cut in half and sandwich frosting in the middle. The other option is to line two baking sheets with parchment paper and scoop the batter in individual little spots to make "pies" for a thinner-type whoopie pie.
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Take your butter, your brown sugar, and your regular sugar and throw it in a large bowl. Beat on medium speed until it's all combined. Add your eggs and egg white. Do it one at a time until the mixture gets all fluffy. Finally, get your 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract in there, beat it up.
-
Weigh or measure out your flour (I can't recommend starting to weigh your flour enough, less dishes, more accurate). Combine flour, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg and 1/4 teaspoon salt, stirring with a whisk. Switch off adding flour mixture and buttermilk to sugar mixture, start and end with flour mixture.. Stir in carrot.
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Spoon batter into prepared muffin tins OR using a tablespoon make little drops of the batter onto your parchment-lined baking sheets. If you're using muffin tins, pop those in the oven for about 12-14 minutes, until a toothpick stuck into the center comes out clean. If you're using the baking sheets, baked for about 10 minutes until they spring back when you give them a little press of your finger.
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Now for the frosting - place the cream cheese, 1/4 cup butter, 2 teaspoons of vanilla, 1 teaspoon cinnamon and 1/8 teaspoon salt in a large bowl, beat with a mixer on medium speed. Start adding your 2 cups powdered sugar slowly. Do this on a low speed.
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Once your frosting is whipped up, either cut your carrot cake "muffins" in half and spread frosting onto each half and sandwich together, or do the same for your "pies". Store in the fridge, since you are dealing with cream cheese here.
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