The chocolate girl

Mother's day, white chocolate and carrot cupcakes.

Impress your Mum this Mothering Sunday by making her these sensational cupcakes. The carrot cake and white chocolate frosting work really well together.

Ingredients

175g/6oz soft brown sugar

150ml sunflower oil

2 eggs, beaten

140g/5oz peeled and finely grated carrots

60g/2oz walnuts

100g/31/2 oz white chocolate

100g/31/2 oz wholemeal self-raising flour

100g, 31/2 oz self-raising flour

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1 tsp ground cinnamon

half a teaspoon finely grated nutmeg

Cream cheese frosting

25g/1oz unsalted butter

100g/31/2 oz full-fat soft cheese

300g/10oz icing sugar

drop vanilla essence

100g/31/2 white chocolate, melted

Decoration

chopped walnuts

finely grated white chocolate

chocolate flowers or candy carrots

Makes 12

Method

Preheat oven to 180C/350F/Gas mark 4 and place muffin cases into a muffin tray.
Chop up walnuts into small pieces and the white chocolate into chunks.
Put the brown sugar, oil, eggs, grated carrot, chopped walnuts, and white chocolate chunks, into a bowl and mix well.
In another bowl - sieve in the flours, bicarbonate of soda, cinnamon and grated nutmeg, combine together.
Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix together until thoroughly combined.
Spoon the mixture into the muffin cases, making sure that you divide the mixture equally between them all. Bake for approximately 20 minutes, until they're golden brown and firm to touch or a testing prong comes out clean. Leave to cool in the tray for 5 minutes, then transfer to a cooling rack.
While they're cooling, make the cream cheese frosting. Melt the white chocolate in a bowl, over a saucepan of just-boiled water. Then, beat the butter in a bowl until soft. Drain any liquid from the soft cheese and add to the butter, beat until fully combined.
Sift the icing sugar and add half to the butter and beat until smooth. Add the vanilla and remaining icing sugar and beat until completely smooth. Then, stir in the melted white chocolate.
Spread over the cooled cakes, then decorate with the chopped walnuts, grated white chocolate and finish off with either a flower or candy carrot.

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