These Amish Friendship Bread cupcakes use chunky applesauce and spicy cinnamon and cloves for a delicious carrot cake variation.
This carrot cake Amish Friendship Bread recipe is always a big hit, especially when made into cupcakes and topped with our Cream Cheese Frosting. We used chunky apple sauce that gave the bread an excellent texture and paired wonderfully with plump raisins and carrots. It helps to keep packages of 4-ounce cups of applesauce on hand, so you can add it to a recipe anytime. They taste even better the next day!
You can also make this as a 9″ x 13″ sheet cake. This version is topped with toasted coconut — yum! Bake at 325° F (165° C) for one hour or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Allow to cool before frosting. Reader Tina notes that she made this recipe using potato flake starter and it worked wonderfully. She did add 1/4 cup flour to the recipe to account for the lack of flour in the starter, but otherwise followed the recipe below.
Carrot Cake Amish Friendship Bread Cupcakes
Ingredients
- 1 cup Amish Friendship Bread Starter
- 3 eggs
- 1 cup oil
- ½ cup milk
- ½ cup applesauce
- 1 cup sugar plus extra for dusting
- ½ teaspoon vanilla
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon plus extra for dusting
- 1 teaspoon ground cloves
- 1½ teaspoons baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- 2 cups flour
- 1 box vanilla instant pudding
- 1 cup walnuts
- 1 cup raisins
- 3 cups carrots shredded
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325° F (165° C).
- In a large mixing bowl, add ingredients as listed.
- Grease one muffin tin. Dust with cinnamon-sugar mixture of ½ teaspoon cinnamon and ½ cup sugar.
- Pour the batter evenly into muffin wells and sprinkle the remaining cinnamon-sugar mixture on the top.
- Bake for 40 minutes or until the bread loosens evenly from the sides and a toothpick inserted in the center of the bread comes out clean.
- ENJOY!
>> Have you tried this recipe? Share your best pic with us or leave a comment below and let us know how it worked for you!
BEST RECIPE we have tried! I shared this carrot cake with several of my neighbors. Everyone is begging for more! It was wonderful! We have to live gluten-free, so the only change was King Arthur gluten-free flour + extra hydration (because you just have to do that with gluten-free flour). People keep asking me, “Are you SURE this is gluten-free? It is so moist! Can I have more?” So far, this recipe is MY FAVORITE!
I made this recipe using my potato flake sourdough starter and it worked beautifully! I made the recipe as is with just an additional 1/4 cup flour to make up for my starter not having any flour component
Rich, moist and delicious. I baked in a mini Bundt pan (6) and a large size muffin tin (6) for a total of 12 mini cakes, which I then drizzled with cream cheese icing. A perfect Easter or spring dessert!
I baked them for 25- 30 minutes, started checking them around 20 mins.
Those sound so delicious, Tina! Thanks for sharing this! We love it when people experiment with their potato flake starter! If you took any pictures, we’d love to see. Feel free to share them to our Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/amishfriendshipbread
Wow! These are so delicious! Only one thing….I made a batch of these and did not double or triple, and I got 36 of them!!! But that is not bad! Yum!
We’re glad the recipe worked for you, Elly! And wow, that sounds like a lot of cupcakes! Definitely not a bad thing in our book! LOL
Is it really 40 minutes for muffins or is it for the cake one. 40 minutes seems an awful long time for a muffin.
Hi Darlene! You can test for readiness around 30 minutes if you’re not sure, but the presence of the starter usually makes the batter wetter and denser, which makes it take a little longer to cook through.
Is 40 minutes bake time correct? Cupcakes usually only take 15-20. I know it is at 325 but still seems a long time.
Test for readiness around 30 minutes if you’re not sure, Charlotte, but the starter makes a wetter, denser batter that takes a little longer to cook through.
Hi Anita! You have two alternatives: 1) try a homemade pudding recipe (we have three in our Recipe Box), or 2) skip it altogether. Pudding boots flavor and moisture, but you can exclude it for most recipes. You can read more about that here: https://www.friendshipbreadkitchen.com/faq-why-do-i-need-to-use-instant-pudding-in-my-amish-friendship-bread/
Has anyone tried these recipes WITHOUT the instant pudding? I don’t think I would like the extra additives and sugar.
My mother is going to love these cupcakes. They look delicious!
My mom has to be the biggest carrot cake fanatic! She loved this one!
I would bake a carrot cake for Mother’s Day. this looks yummy.
I would love to make this for my parents and for my husband, its looks really tasty
I had only tried the chocolate and cinnamon varieties, it was so nice to switch it up!
Rather than cream cheese frosting I dusted this with powdered sugar and like it much better. Much better than loaded with frosting in my opinion.
This was the PERFECT recipe for me to bring to our church buffet. Everybody raved about them!
MY HUSBAND LOVES CARROT.
I’M ALWAYS TRYING NEW RECIPES. HE’LL LOVE THIS
Looks fabulous! I am going to have to make some starter and try some of these variation recipes!
I am so excited to try this recipe! Just 4 more days!
Made these the other day and brought some into the office with me… everyone loved them! Those that already had a starter on them asked for the recipe, to which I introduced them to this website!