Carrot Cupcake with Cream Cheese Icing

Haven't been doing baking for quite sometime now. But since I'm making juice out of carrot and there are always quite amount of carrot pulps left, so I decided to make carrot cupcake. And tried out the cream cheese icing I always wanted to do.

The recipe I got from Wilton.Com

For the batter:

Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups granulated sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons baking soda
4 eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
4 cups (approx. 1 lb) carrots freshly shredded
2/3 cup nuts chopped ( I used almond chopped)

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350°F. Line standard muffin pan with baking cups. In medium bowl, combine flour, sugar, cinnamon and baking soda; mix well.
In large bowl, beat eggs with electric mixer until foamy; add oil in a thin stream and beat well. Add flour mixture to egg mixture; mix well. Fold in carrots and nuts. Spoon into baking cups.
Bake 18-20 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool cupcakes in pan on cooling rack for 5-8 minutes. Remove cupcakes from pan; cool completely.
Do not use pre-shredded carrots.
Spray pans with vegetable pan spray, then fill each with about 1/2 cup batter. Place pans on cookie sheet and bake 14-16 minutes. Cool in pan on cooling grid for about 8 minutes; remove from pan and cool completely before filling and icing.

For cream cheese icing:

* I only made half of the ingredients and the amount of sugar also been reduced to make it less sweet.

Ingredients:
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
2 packages (8 oz. each) cream cheese, softened
8 cups sifted confectioners' sugar (about 2 lbs.)
2 tablespoons milk
1 tablespoon orange juice
1 teaspoon orange zest
Makes: About 5 1/2 cups of icing.
instructions
In medium mixer bowl, cream butter and cream cheese together until smooth. Add sugar one cup at a time and milk. Mix well. Beat on high until smooth (only 30 seconds to 1 minute). Thin to ice cake smooth; use full strength for piping borders.
NOTE: Do not use light cream cheese or butter substitute. If margarine is used, icing will be softer.