A Trio of Cupcakes with Cottage Cheese Frosting

Cook Time 50 minutes

Servings 3 of each (makes 9 cupcakes)

Ingredients

Cupcake Batter
2 cups self-raising flour, sifted
250g sugar
160ml milk
150g butter, softened
3 eggs, beaten
1 tsp. natural vanilla essence

Cottage Cheese Frosting
200g creamed cottage cheese
70g butter
300g sifted icing sugar

Roasted Carrot
10ml olive oil
1 large carrot for 100g of roasted carrot
35g chopped walnuts
1 tbs. maple syrup
1 tsp. cardamom, ground

Beetroot and Chocolate
1 medium sized beetroot for 70 grams of roasted beetroot
1 tbs. Dutch coco
50g chocolate buds

Ginger and Leather Wood Honey
2 tsp. ginger, ground
1 tbs. leather wood honey

Method

Preheat oven to 160C

Cupcake Batter
In a mixer, cream the butter and sugar together. Slowly add the eggs followed by the flour, milk and vanilla. Keep mixing until all combined. Separate into three equal amounts.

Roasted Carrots
Take the large carrot, peel and slice it on a diagonal, toss in a little olive oil and roast until the carrot browns and has a slight burnt tinge.
Once the carrot has cooled, blend in a food processor  or use a stick blender with the muffin batter  mix. Add chopped walnuts, maple syrup and cardamom and mix together.

Beetroot and Chocolate
Take the beetroot, slice it in half and toss in olive oil. Cook in oven for approximately 20 minutes until a knife can easily pierce the beetroot (you can cook it at the same time as the carrot). Once cooled, peel and grate the beetroot then mix into the batter. Add the coco (sifted) and chocolate buds.

Ginger and Leather Wood Honey
Simply mix the ground ginger and honey into the batter.

Using a 10cm metal muffin tin, lightly grease and fill with paper cupcake bases.
Spoon each mix into the paper bases. Bake for approximately 20 minutes or until cooked through.
Bake for 30 minutes

Cottage Cheese Frosting
Whisk the cottage cheese to remove as many lumps as possible, cream with the butter then add the sifted icing sugar. Ice the cupcakes at room temperature.