Carrot Cupcakes

Since I started my new job in an office with all men, there aren't any fun traditions or birthday celebrations. It's light night and day compared to my job at the Y, where we basically take the morning off to celebrate someone's birthday! I decided to start bringing in some sort of cake, cupcake, cookie, etc. for birthdays.
Tomorrow is one of my co-worker's birthdays, and he requested carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. I have a favorite carrot cake recipe, but it doesn't translate well to cupcakes, so I asked for a good cupcake recipe, and got about 5 great recipes. Some had apple, raisins, nuts, and other additions, but I wanted something basic, so I went with Annie's suggestion from Baking Illustrated. These came out wonderfully, and everyone loved them! Thanks, Annie!
The recipe yields 20-22, but I added about 3 cups of carrot and easily got 24 cupcakes.

Carrot Cupcakes

2½ cups all-purpose flour

1¼ tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. baking soda

1¼ tsp. ground cinnamon

½ tsp. grated nutmeg

1/8 tsp. ground cloves

½ tsp. salt

1 lb. (6-7 medium) carrots, peeled (I used 3 cups shredded baby carrots)

1½ cups granulated sugar

½ cup packed light brown sugar

4 large eggs

1½ cups canola, safflower or vegetable oil

Preheat the oven to 350° F.

Line two cupcake pans with paper liners.

In a medium mixing bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, spices and salt; whisk together and set aside.

In a food processor fitted with a shredding disk, shred the carrots (you should have about 3 cups).

Add the carrots to the bowl with the dry ingredients and set aside.

Wipe out the bowl of the food processor and fit with the metal blade.

Process the sugars and eggs until frothy and thoroughly combined, about 20 seconds.

With the machine running, add the oil in a steady stream through the feed tube.

Continue to process until the mixture is light in color and well emulsified, about 20 more seconds.

Transfer the mixture to a large mixing bowl.

Stir in the carrots and dry ingredients until incorporated and no streaks of flour remain.

Scoop evenly into the prepared cupcake liners.

Bake for about 20-24 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Let cool in the pan at least 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

For the cream cheese frosting, I used my basic cream cheese frosting found here!