PPQ: Tropical Carrot Cake Cupcakes

in Cakes & Cupcakes, Pineapple, Project Pastry Queen

Tropical Carrot Cake with Coconut Cream Cheese Frosting

Emily of A Gilt Nutmeg selected this week’s Project Pastry Queen challenge: Tropical Carrot Cake with Coconut Cream Cheese Frosting. And like just about every other cake in The Pastry Queen, it’s a gigantic, impressive, and fabulous dessert.

Tropical Carrot Cake with Coconut Cream Cheese Frosting

I absolutely love this carrot cake – it’s my second favorite recipe. It has the unusual addition of macadamia nuts, crushed pineapple, and cream of coconut in the batter and frosting for a tropical twist.

And with all that moisture, it stays fresh for days. And days. We’re actually not so big fans of coconut but the shredded coconut disappears into the cake and the cream of coconut added to the frosting was barely detectable.

Tropical Carrot Cake with Coconut Cream Cheese Frosting

I stayed true to the original recipe (which you can find over at Emily’s blog), making half of it, using coconut oil instead of vegetable oil, reducing the sugar by 1/3, and using neufchatel for the frosting. And then I dropped the mixer bowl on the kitchen floor and batter went everywhere. Everywhere.

I recommend against doing that. Cleaning carrot cake batter out of kitchen tile grout is actually pretty tough. But I do recommend scooping up the “top layer” of the batter and still getting 6 cupcakes out of the deal!

PPQ desserts just don’t stand a chance in this house 🙂

Tropical Carrot Cake with Coconut Cream Cheese Frosting

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