Carrot cake cupcakes

• 1 cupall-purpose flour
• ¾ cuplight brown sugar — packed
• ½ cupneutral oil — plain — the cake carries no dose
• 2large eggs
• 1½ cupsgrated carrot — grated on the small holes
• 1 tspbaking soda
• 1½ tspground cinnamon
• ½ tspground ginger
• ½ tspfine salt

• ½ cup infused butter

  Set your infusion strength above and this splits into infused and plain butter to hit whatever dose you want.

• 8 ozfull-fat cream cheese — cold
• 2 cupspowdered sugar — sifted
• 1 tspvanilla extract
• ¼ tspfine salt

Method

1. 01

   Heat the oven to 350 °F and line a twelve-cup tin with papers.

   350 °F

2. 02

   Grate the carrots on the small holes of a box grater. Coarse shreds stay crunchy through baking and release water into the crumb a day later.

3. 03

   Whisk the brown sugar, plain oil and eggs until smooth, then fold in the carrot, flour, baking soda, spices and salt until the flour disappears.

4. 04

   Divide the batter between the twelve cups with a scoop so they are level with each other, and bake at 350 °F until a toothpick comes out clean.

   350 °F · 20 min

5. 05

   Cool the cupcakes completely. Frosting a warm cupcake melts the butter out of the frosting, and that butter is where the dose lives.

   45 min

6. 06

   Beat the softened infused butter with the powdered sugar, vanilla and salt until smooth, then add the cold cream cheese and beat only until it comes together. Cream cheese frosting turns soupy if you keep going — the structure comes from cold cheese, not from whipping.

   3 min

7. 07

   Putting the dose in the frosting rather than the crumb is a deliberate trade. Frosting never sees the oven, so the infusion goes in at full strength, and frosting is easy to portion exactly. The cost is that the dose now sits on top where it can be scraped off or licked off — anyone who eats two frosting tops has had two servings, and anyone who peels the top off has had none.

8. 08

   Weigh the frosting into twelve equal portions — about 45 grams each — or pipe it and check the tin on a scale as you work. Eyeballed swirls vary by half again between the first cupcake and the last.

9. 09

   Chill the frosted cupcakes for half an hour to set the frosting, then keep them covered in the refrigerator and bring them to cool room temperature before serving.

   30 min