Second time on the carrot cake!

The first batch of carrot cupcakes was so horrific I almost didn't even try a second attempt.  However, I promised Jon of Jon's Painting a dozen cupcakes of his choice, for giving me such a fantastic price for painting my house.  He chose carrot cake, so I searched online for a recipe that had good reviews.

And Google came to the rescue, as always, with this recipe for The Best Ever Carrot Cake Cupcakes.  I made them today, with hand-crushed pineapple (Thanks, Sweetheart!) and walnuts instead of pecans.  The recipe made about 30 cupcakes, and they came out very well, says my husband.  Whew!!  So I made up a double batch of cream cheese icing (2 blocks Philly, 3 pounds or so sifted powdered sugar, bunch of vanilla) and iced them up.  Stepson gave a thumbs up, so I think we're good to go.

I've got these ones in the fridge.  It's HOT here today, and I just don't think that cream cheese icing has the same ability to be stiff and fluffy that buttercream does.  Maybe THAT's why the cream cheese icing recipes always call for a little bit of butter, too.  I leave the butter out usually, but maybe next time I'll try putting the butter in.  It seemed to work very well in the lemon cream cheese icing, but I wanted it there to creamy up the lemon flavor a bit.  Hm.  Let's try, oh, I dunno, actually following a recipe and see what happens!

And while we're on the Philly recipe page, please join me in a SQUEEEEEE, 'cause, damn:

Pumpkin Cupcakes with Cinnamon-Cream Cheese Frosting

I want to make these, DESPERATELY,  but I don't know if I'll have time before my surgery on June 25.  I have only 2 weekends between now and then, and I've got to get my house in order.  We'll see!

PS:  Alice's cookbook is out!!  And for a $2.50 upcharge, you can pre-order the Kindle version.  It might go OK on my Kindle Fire, but I am not sure enough to buy that version.  I think I'll stick with the dead-tree version!

Lesson Learned:  Recipes don't always know what they're talking about (witness the first carrot cupcake debacle), but it might be advisable to try following them before deciding to change them up.