Carrot and poppy seed cupcakes with lime and pomegranate frosting

I've never been a baker, a cook, yes, but a baker with exact precision... Hell no. I find it difficult to know how much I should knead a dough without it getting too compact and gross, I have a tendency to use too much flour because the dough sticks to my hands and I almost always use too little of some super important spice, like salt. 

But I am also extremely stubborn and am therefore determined to become great! ...or at least okay, at baking. Cupcakes in all kinds, shapes and sizes are super trendy so I thought I would give them a go. 

One of my best mates makes an amazing carrot cake, so I thought I'd steal parts of her recipe and mix in some of my own flavors. 

The What:

3 eggs

3 dl white sugar

3 dl flour

1 tsp vanilla sugar

3 tsp baking powder

1 pinch of salt

1 ½ tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp ground cardamom

2 tsp ground ginger

4 tsp poppy seeds

1 ½ dl sunflower oil

5 dl grated carrots

and for the frosting you need

60 g of soft butter

5 dl icing sugar

1 tsp vanilla sugar

100 g Philadelphia cheese

the peel from one lime + 1 more for garnish

lime juice from ½ a lime

pomegranate seeds, also for the garnish

The How (for the cupcakes)

Put the oven to 175 degrees.

Beat eggs and sugar until white and airy in consistency. If you have an electric whisk or mixer, use this because beating it by hand is haaaard. I used my boyfriend. 

Mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl and carefully turn them into the egg mixture. 

Add the sunflower oil and the carrots.

Place the paper cupcake forms in an oven safe dish and fill the forms up to about 2/3 with batter. 

Bake in the middle of the oven for about 15-20 minutes, depending on your oven. 

Let the cupcakes cool before you add the frosting.

and The How to make the frosting:

Beat the butter, icing sugar, vanilla sugar, the grated lime peel, lime juice and the Philadelphia cheese until nice and creamy.

Spread the frosting over the cupcakes and garnish with poppy seeds, lime peel and pomegranate seeds. 

They actually turned out pretty good, although I may have overdone the frosting on a few of them. If you have a muffin dish to put the paper forms in, I highly recommend that you use it; with out that stability, the cupcakes float out a bit too much. They still taste great but they don't look as pretty!

We enjoyed these babies outside in the grass with a cup of lungo coffee. 

Mmmm finger lickin' good!!! (sorry for stealing your line Colonal Sanders!)

Thank you Nathalie Eklund for the inspiration <3

(and thank you Leila Lindholm for inspiring her)