Carrot cupcakes

So after all that Frenchiness, I decided to make something really British, namely carrot cupcakes (which are basically carrot cakes, only smaller). Somehow we'd managed to avoid every salon du the in Paris (not actively, I had even looked some of them up, but there's just too much to do in Paris), and I was craving for some good old cupcakes.
Now I checked on line for several recipes but none really suited my purpose, so I created my own by combining several other recipes. It is mostly based on the BBC Good Food recipe for carrot & cream cheese cupcakes, but as I have no clue what "brown muscovado sugar" might be, and  bicarbonate of soda still isn't something you just find in shops around here, you will see I've made some changes.

Ingredients:
175 g brown sugar
100 g plain flour
100 g self-raising flour
3 tablespoons of mixed spices (this is called "koek- en speculaaskruiden" in Dutch, it contains cinnamon, coriander, nutmeg, cloves, ginger, and cardamom)
1 tablespoon of lemon zest
2 eggs
150 ml sunflower oil
150 g grated carrots (you want to grate these in your kitchen machine. Believe me, I tried grating them by hand, and it's no fun. Also, it makes everything in your kitchen bright orange)

Told you it didn't look pretty!

Add the sugar, flours, spices, and lemon zest to your grated carrots.
Combine the eggs and oil in a separate bowl.
While letting the machine run, pour in the oil-mixture bit by bit until you have a soft dough. (At this point, it will not look pretty. Believe me). Spoon the mixture into your cupcake cases (you'll need 12, or fewer if you want bigger cakes) and bake for about 20 minutes at 180 degrees C, until they are firm but still springy to the touch. Let cool on a wire rack (or you'll get soggy bottoms, and if The Great British Bake-off taught me anything, it is that you don't want soggy bottoms).

Now, you can eat them just as they are, or you can add some icing (what Americans call "frosting", which always reminds me of How to lose a guy in 10 days ("Frooooooost yourself!!!") but never mind). Make sure your cupcakes are completely cooled before putting on the icing or your icing will melt, or worse, split.

Icing ingredients (this makes for a loooot of icing (see photo), take half of these amounts for a more modest amount):
100 g butter (soft)
200 g cream cheese
100-200 g icing sugar (how much icing sugar you use will depend on how sweet you want the icing to be. I like it when there is a bit of a sour bite to it, so I used 100 g (also because the carrots make the cakes really sweet), but if you have a sweet-tooth, use more than that)

Mix the butter until it is soft and smooth. Beat in the cream cheese, and finally beat in the icing sugar. Use a knife to put it on top of the cupcakes, because the mixture is too thick to go through a piping bag.

Now, with added deliciousness!

You can decorate them in any way you want, I didn't have any cute sprinkly things laying around, so we just ate them like this. And they were delicious! Sweet, spicy, a bit soury, moist but firm, hmmmm!

I think I may try these again with some chopped walnuts added to the batter, I wouldn't mind a bit more of a crunch. But other than that, they're great!