Carrot & Orange Cupcakes

Recipe from Women's Weekly 'Cakes' cook book.
Total time: 50 minutes - Makes: 12

What you need:
2/3 cup (160ml) of vegetable oil
3/4 cup (165g) firmly packed brown sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoon finely grated orange rind
1 1/2 cups (210g) firmly packed coarsely grated carrot
1 3/4 (260g) self-raising flour
1/4 teaspoon bicarb soda
1 teaspoon of mixed spice (we've forgotten this both times and it has still turned out nummy, so don't stress if you don't have/can't find this)
For the orange glace icing:
2 cups (320g) icing sugar
20g butter, melted
2 tablespoons orange juice


What you do:
1. Preheat oven to 180º/160ºC fan forced. (That's 356ºF for you Americans!)
2. Put 12 patty pans in a muffin tray.
3. Beat oil, sugar, eggs and rind in small bowl with electric mixer. (We used a little handheld whisky thing) Do this until thick & creamy.
4. Transfer to large bowl; stir in carrot and then sifted dry ingredients.
5. Spoon mixture into paper cases and bake for about 30 minutes. Allow to cool on rack.
6. Start on your icing after about 5-10 mins; sift icing sugar into small heatproof bowl; stir in butter and enough juice to make a firm paste. Stir over small saucepan of simmering water until spreadable :)


Again, you could probably skip the bowl over heated water, it would just mean the icing would be thicker and you'd probably have to make more. *Simple trick* Use a heated knife (run it under hot water) to spread your icing. We also just dipped a few cupcakes into the icing and twisted, that seemed to work too!

And yes, I'm wearing that Sportsgirl dress backwards Kate :p I put it on that way and decided to wear it like that all day. Hehe.