Carrot cupcakes

This recipe is from my new No Whine book.  Of course I made them #1 because I promised Benjamin a dessert if he did something or another, and #2 - I thought I might actually get some carrots into Aaron.  (I think he had 2 bites.)  I am now a super goober and halved the oil in a recipe from a healthy cookbook, but they actually list nutritional facts, and each cupcake was going to have 12 g of fat.  So I used 1/2 applesauce.  

To spite the fact that I felt like these had a large amount of sugar, they were not very sweet.  I felt like they were more of a muffin than a cupcake - and in fact had a few family members who ate for breakfast the next morning.

This only solidified the fact that I prefer my carrot cake with pineapple.  I think it adds sweetness. 

Ingredients

• 1 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup canola oil
• 1/4 cup applesauce
• 1 cup milk (I used skim)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 1/4-1 1/2 cups finely grated carrots
• 3/4 cup all purpose flour
• 3/4 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

Icing

• 4 oz light cream cheese
• 3/4 cup powdered sugar

Directions (very abbreviated)

1. Mix wet ingredients until well blended.  Add carrots, mix dry ingredients, add to wet and stir until combined.  Bake at 350 for 20 minutes (I think with the applesauce I baked them 4 more minutes.) or until toothpick comes out clean.  
2. When cool, beat the cream cheese and powdered sugar until smooth and frost.