Everything Nice: Lucie Sheridan & Carrot Cupcakes

This tea tow­el is very well loved!

I’m back in the kitchen with the sec­ond install­ment of Every­thing Nice fea­tur­ing To Dry For, Beast in Show, and illus­tra­tor Lucie Sheri­dan. If you missed my inau­gur­al post, check it out here.

For this project, I chose 3 illus­tra­tors whose work I admired, and then I asked them what their favorite baked good was. Through­out the course of Every­thing Nice, I’ll make their sweet treat and show you how to do it, too. Plus, you’ll see their work in action.

When I emailed Lucie Sheri­dan about what her favorite baked good was, she gave me a list! It includ­ed Nigel­la’s Guin­ness choco­late cake. Although I am par­tial to choco­late, I ulti­mate­ly decid­ed on car­rot cup­cakes, and I am so glad I did. Cou­pled with cream cheese frost­ing, these things are deli­cious. My boyfriend and I skipped din­ner one night and only ate these cup­cakes, because you know, #adults.

I used Lucie’s Cock­apoo tea tow­el while bak­ing. It was extreme­ly help­ful, not to men­tion super cute.

Lucie’s tea tow­el design before all the bak­ing, wash­ing, and drying.

So, there are two recipes here. One for the car­rot cup­cakes and anoth­er for the frost­ing. Both don’t require a lot of active time — the most time con­sum­ing thing is grat­ing the car­rots, but even then it goes pret­ty quick­ly. I own a stand mix­er, so if you have one, def­i­nite­ly use it.

And, one last thing. I for­got to buy cup­cake lin­ers. This was a fail on my part. Although I prop­er­ly greased the tin, it was near­ly impos­si­ble to take the cup­cakes out with­out ruin­ing their bottoms.

Take 5 Carrot Cupcakes 

Active time: 30 min­utes | Total time: 1 hour
Makes 14 cup­cakes (I made 12)
Source: Food & Wine

• 1 cup all-pur­pose flour
• 1 1/2 tea­spoons cinnamon
• 1 tea­spoon bak­ing soda
• 1/2 tea­spoon salt
• 2 large eggs
• 3/4 cup canola oil
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 tea­spoon pure vanil­la extract
• 1 1/2 cups fine­ly shred­ded car­rots (from about 6 medi­um carrots)

1. Pre­heat the oven to 350 degrees Fahren­heit and line muf­fin tin with paper lin­ers. Grease the lin­ers with veg­etable oil.

2. In a medi­um bowl, whisk the flour with the cin­na­mon, bak­ing soda, and salt.

3. In a large bowl, with the help of an elec­tric mix­er, beat the eggs and canola oil. Alter­na­tive­ly, if you have a stand mix­er, mix ’em in there. Grad­u­al­ly beat in the sug­ar and a medi­um-high speed until thick, about 3 min­utes. Add the vanilla.

4. Fold the dry ingre­di­ents into the sug­ar mix­ture using a rub­ber spat­u­la. Once com­bined, fold in the carrots.

5. Spoon the bat­ter into the muf­fin tins and bake for 25 to 30 min­utes (mine took 25), until a tooth­pick insert­ed in the cen­ter comes out clean.

6. Let the tin cool slight­ly then trans­fer the cup­cakes to the freez­er. This will make them eas­i­er to frost.

7. Time to dec­o­rate! I used a pip­ing tool and then spread the frost­ing with an off-set spat­u­la. But, a but­ter knife will also do the trick.

Cream Cheese Frosting

Total time: 15 minutes
Makes 1 1/2 cups
Source: Food & Wine

• 4 table­spoons unsalt­ed but­ter, softened
• 4 ounces cream cheese, softened
• 1/2 tea­spoon pure vanil­la extract
• 1 3/4 cups con­fec­tion­ers’ sug­ar (8 ounces)

1. In the bowl of an elec­tric mix­er, beat the but­ter with the cream cheese until smooth.

2. Add in the vanil­la and con­fec­tion­ers’ sug­ar and beat at a high speed until fluffy.

Take a look at that fuzzy pho­to­bomb in the back.

Heads up! To Dry For/Beast in Show provided me with Lucie’s tea towel, but the words, pictures, and opinions are all my own.