Sarah + Carrots = Disaster

If you had read my post about Tracy's Birthday, you would know that I don't have much luck with baking carrot-based creations. I was assured from many PPKers that if I tried VwaV's Carrot Cake, my creation would be great. Being the optimist I am, I told myself that I would yet again try to come up with an edible and equally presentable carrot creation.

So today, when I was supposed to be studying for my certification and/or vacuuming (neither of which is a desirable task), I thought that I should make some cupcakes. I thought that my blog entries have been a little bland lately, and a cupcake is more fun to post than a bowl of soup or uncooked gnocchi. I whipped out my copy of VCTOTW, and started to flip through the pages to find something that I already had the ingredients for. I first stumbled across the basic chocolate cupcake, and thought that it would be do-able. After a few more pages, I found today's cupcake: Carrot Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Icing. I had flashbacks to all of the horrible carrot cakes I had made in the past - way too damp, dense and greasy...but I knew that Isa and Terry would be able to help me erase those all too vivid memories of carrot cakes past.

Everything was going so well. I grated the carrots (and re-read the recipe to make sure that I didn't have to drain them or something), and prepared the mixture. I then read a strange step:


Spray the cupcake liners??? Odd, I thought, but I performed the task anyways. I'd do anything weird if it helped me right the many carrot wrongs! I poured the mixture into each liner, baked for 29 minutes until a toothpick came out clean, then let them cool.

So far so good, right? I thought that they looked a little too moist, but convinced myself that I was being too critical. I then prepared the frosting. The recipe called for soy cream cheese, Earth Balance, icing sugar and vanilla. Since the cupcake recipe had called for 1/3 cup soy vanilla yogurt, I had a little left over in my tub. I'm not a fan of the Tofutti hydrogenated oil/tofu combo, so I opted to use the yogurt in lieu of the cream cheese and vanilla. The icing turned out great!

I was going to use my new pastry bag set, but I was too lazy. Already, too much time had gone by without studying or vacuuming, so I couldn't waste any more time on something that wasn't totally necessary. I just used a knife, but it still looked pretty:

I had spoken to my mom earlier in the day, and found out that Tracy, Pete and Princess were going to pay her a visit tonight for some tea. Perfect, I thought, as I could take over Tracy's favourite dessert! Due to all of the disappointments I had created in the past, I decided to taste test one cupcake. Good thing I did:

In case you can't tell what this is: it is actually a cupcake after an attempt at peeling off the liner. Just like every other carrot creation, it was way too damp, dense and greasy. It didn't even remain intact! I called my mom and left a message that they would have to fend for themselves tonight for dessert :(

Does this happen to anyone else? Do the carrots shipped to Ottawa have a higher water content than those found in other locales? I just don't get what I do wrong!

I hate carrots.