I made carrot cake cupcakes with cream cheese icing, decorated with tiny baby feet made from sugar paste for my sister-in-law's baby shower this weekend. They were delicious and very light because I beat the eggs and sugar till very creamy and then again after adding the oil.

Step 1:

Ingredients:

4 eggs
400gr / 500ml sugar
250ml Cooking oil
325gr/ 625ml Selfraising flour
5ml Baking soda
5ml fine cinnamon
2ml nutmeg
1ml salt
350gr/ 750ml grated carrot

Icing:
90gr/ 100ml soft butter
450gr/ 700ml icing sifted sugar
1 tub of smooth cream cheese
2ml Vanilla Essence
half a lemon
blue gel food colouring

sugar paste mold of 2 baby feet
pre-made sugar paste
flesh coloured gel food colouring
cornflour
Foil cupcake liners

Step 2:

Beat eggs and sugar together till creamy.

Add cooking oil and beat well.

Sift flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon together in another bowl.

Fold dry ingredients into egg mixture.

Add carrots to mixture and mix lightly until just combined.

Step 3:

Put spoonfuls of batter into lined muffin tins, making them about 3/4 full as the batter rises quite a lot. Bake for 25 minutes at 180 degrees celcius rotating if necessary to ensure they cook evenly. The cupcakes are ready when they spring back when touched lightly on top and are golden all over. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for 5 minutes in the muffin tray then remove and allow to cool completely on a wire rack.

Step 4:

Instructions for Icing:

Mix butter and icing sugar well.
Add cream cheese and vanila essence
Mix till smooth, using a beater if necessary

Step 5:

Instructions for decorations:

knead the sugar paste until it is smooth and no longer has any lumps, add the flesh food colouring to a small amount of the sugar paste until you have more or less the right colour and then add it to the rest of the paste. If it needs stronger colour, add more colour to a small amount of paste and then add that to the rest of the paste. Do not just the colour straight to the whole batch because you can always add more colour but if you add too much (which is very easy!) you can't take it out!

As soon as you have the right colour, wrap the paste up tight and make sure that no air can get to it because it dries out very quickly.

Next, take your mold and ensure that it is clean and completely dry. Completely fill the mold with cornflour and rub it right into all the crevasses then tip it out and gently knock the loose bits off. Quickly take a piece of sugar paste as close as you can estimate is the size of one tiny foot and press it into the depression and make sure that it fills the entire foot area and scrape any excess paste off so that it is flush across the top. Immediately turn the mold over and pop the foot out of the mold. Repeat the process straight away with the second foot. Do not attempt to dust the cornflour off the feet until after they have hardened, it is very easy to do at that stage. If any part of the feet stick while removing them from the mold, make sure you wash and thoroughly dry the mold before attempting to make another one. If there is an imperfection from one sticking, put a bit of cornflour on your finger and try smoothing it down.