Easter is coming up but I won’t be home for it, so as you can see, I have already done my Easter Baking.

At first, I considered making some traditional English Hot Cross Buns. But then I thought of the big Easter Brunch buffets that are the popular thing to do all over Germany and I decided to make something that would be a nice addition to such a buffet: little carrot cupcakes (because Easter bunnies like carrots, right?!). 

They are not like an American or English carrot cake but based on a Swiss receipe and much lighter, as they are almond based. You may also find the icing a lot less sweet and not as rich as your usual cupcake icing but it works great on these little delights.

And with only one table spoon of flour you could probably easily make them gluten free too.

Please not that they are little indeed, so make sure you use the smaller cases, which are called cupcake cases in the Uk, rather than what here we call muffin cases.

For 12 small cupcakes you’ll need:

• 2 eggs
• a pinch of salt
• 70g caster sugar
• 100g ground almonds
• 1 tbsp plain flour
• 100g grated carrots

And for the icing:

• 100g unsalted butter, softened
• 150g cream cheese 
• 150g icing sugar
• grated rind of one orange
• white chocolate mini carrots to decorate (optional)

Preheat the over to gas mark 4 / 180 Celsius /  350 Fahrenheit.

Line a 12 cup muffin tin with small liners (see note above).

Separate the egg whites from the egg yolks and, after adding a pinch of salt, whisk them until they form stiff peaks. Then add the sugar by whisking it in, in about 3 batches – don’t over whisk this as you want to keep the volume from the whisked egg whites.

Stir in the egg yolks, again gently, then using a spatula carefully fold the ground almonds, flour and grated carrots under until everything is combined.

Bake for 25-30 minutes or until that tooth pick comes out clean.

Take the cakes out onto a wire tray to let them cool down completely.

For the icing, cream the softened butter with an electric whisk, then add the cream cheese and whisk them together until they are of a whipped constancy. Whisk the icing sugar in and finally the orange rind. 

Once the cakes are completely cooled down, either pipe the icing on top or simply spread generous swirls of frosting on your cakes, using a knife or the back of a tea spoon and if you like add a little carrot, of the chocolate variety, on top,

Happy Easter!