Inside out Carrot cupcakes

 I know.. Another food post. Sorry. I love the kitchen!

So, this past weekend we went to the farmers market here in town and got a huge steal on carrots and apples. So Now the big question... What to do with all these carrots before they go bad. The kids have been loving them. they taste so good. But we can only eat a bushel of carrots so fast. This morning I was looking at them and realized we needed to do some thing with them fast. some were starting to turn. Ahh Carrot cake! But how do you easily store a carrot cake and only take out what you need.. Maybe something smaller... carrot cupcakes.. Perfect. I had most of a whole package of cream cheese left for icing and away we go. I've frozen Cream cheese icing before and know that it's fine.. But now how do I frezze cupcakes with the icing on them... I could ice them when I need them, but that defets the purpose of just being able to pull them out and thaw... ahh the icing on the inside.. Perfect. So here is my inside out carrot cup cakes!!

The recipe I used came from the King arthur flour site. I just altered it a bit to fit our preferences And I doubled it. so this is easily halved. But, like I said we have a whole bushel of carrots

• 4 1/2 C flour (I use whole wheat for everything!)
• 1 C raw sugar ( you can use reg. sugar. I happen to have raw.)
• 1/2 C firm packed Brown sugar
• 1T baking powder
• 1/2 t baking soda
• 1T ground Cinnamon
• 1 1/2t ground ginger
• 1t salt
• 4 lg eggs
• 11/2 C water
• 3/4 C coconut oil
• 3/4 C apple sauce. ( with all the apples I made my own. lol)
• 2C grated carrots

(If your dividing the recipe, use either the oil or the apple sauce. or split both)
All the ingredients from the top to the salt goes in a big bowl combine them together.
your eggs go into a second bowl and beat them well. them add everything down to the Apple sauce. combine these all together. add the egg mix to the flour and spice mix.
stir everything together. Add the carrots and mix until combined.

Cream Cheese icing.
so this is the way I like cream cheese icing, it is a ton less sweet then traditionally. But thats just our preference.

• 1PK of cream cheese. (8oz)
• 1/8 cup coconut oil
• 1/8 C butter
• 1/2 cup Icing sugar
• 1T vanilla extract

Dump everything into your mixer and mix away until it looks a bit light. If you want this to be stiff enough to actually ice your cupcakes you will probably need more icing sugar.


NB: it is generally 4 cups, so you can go up to that amount. but it is really sweet. I never add more then 2 cups and just deal with it being a bit runny.

Put just enough batter in your greased or papered cupcake pan to cover the bottom.



Plop 1 1/2 T(ish)of your icing filling in the middle of each cupcake and then cover with more batter. ( I tend to fill mine to much...)

and then bake at 350 for 20 mins or until they are done.





OH so yumm!!

Sorting things out

As a side...
this took me several weeks to write and I apologize for the jumbled mess it is. it is unclear and not well written, and missing some parts.


In 2008 my grandmother died.
She is my mothers mom.
After battling several times with breast cancer and wining three fights, Cancer eventually won the war with her body. She fought for 7 plus years. I didn't go to see her in her last 5 months of life here. I was, at that time pregnant with my second son. I was asked not to go and see her so that she wouldn't feel bad about dying before our baby was born. She never knew I was pregnant. My sister (K) is an amazing RPN. She was able to help provide end of life care to my grandmother. she would stop by on her way to and from Clients and was able to send information along to us. After my grandmother could no longer stay at home, she went to a hospice. She was expected to be there for a week Grandma passed away 3 1/2 weeks later on May 14th It was just after Mothers day weekend. my mom went to Burlington to spend as much time there as she could. During that time Todd and I did her job here as well as our own. (I worked full time then running a salon.) my mom didn't have a job at that time that didn't allow for days off. So the responsibility was left to us to take care of everything at home. I would do it again. But I missed my chance to say good bye.

I don't pretend that I know either of my sets of Grand parents well. We lived 3 hours away. Not a fun drive. But in the past few years I began to get to know My Dad's Mom better. Began to find common threads in our lives. I liked that Grandma F talked to me like an equal. And I liked that when you asked a question you got an answer. an honest one from what I know. seeing the strong bond that my Kids have with my parents, And Todd's with his makes me crave a connection to my Grandparents as well.

 On April 3rd Dad's mother passed away. (when I started typing this she was still alive. When I originally got to this spot, She had been gone only a few days.) 2 years ago it had become apparent that grandma wasn't well. After several trips to the ER for various other complaints it was discovered that she had cancer. She had surgery and it appeared to have been erraticated. .
nearing the middle of last summer during a routine check up in the area of the surgery two small masses were discovered. K was then put charge of medical care for both of my Dad's parents By my grandmother at the suggestion of my Dad. After several appt's to decide what was to be done, it was decided that it was in fact a reoccurrence of cancer but likely so slow growing and she would probably have several (I think the number 5ish was through around) years left if she chose to not undergo treatment for the tumours.She was apparently very insistent that treatment was not an option. My Grandfather has had many strokes and medical issues in the course of the last 30 years that she had been his primary care giver and she was not wanting to be to incapacitated to care for him. At his insistence they packed up and left for florida for a few winter months and returned in March. A few weeks later and after two trips to the ER it was discovered that the cancer had moved much quicker then anyone could have predicted.  3 months at this point was an optimistic assumption. She would not leave the hospital. E-Mails flew from the finger tips of K to the family with up to the minute updates. Through all of this from the beginning we were and are blessed to have someone with such intimate knowledge. We actually knew what was really going on.  She knew the right questions to ask.  I hadn't seen my grandmother since last summer. I was making plans to go up to see her. What is it they say. life is what happens when your too busy making plans? We weren't able to make it up until the end of that week. I really wanted her to meet M.J. Tuesday morning K called and told me that I had 48 hours at the most. She knew my desire to get M.J. there. I know how selfish that is. Don't think I don't know. an hours later K called me back and got Todd on the phone and told him if we weren't already in the van on our way we wouldn't make it. I was just finishing with a client. So we sat and waited. What else do you do. after a short time I went and sat by myself with M.J. in my arms sleeping on the edge of my bed. I tell you I felt her. it was a brief moment. It moved by quick it was warm and comfortable, but then it was gone. And then the phone rang, and I realized what had happened. I'm not sure if she came here as she passed through, or if I just felt her relief. she had been asking K a lot of questions the day before about who would take care of Grandpa. I think she just wanted reassurance. I missed my chance to say Good bye. But I suppose she may have come to say it anyways.