Carrot Cake Bake-Off

With our budget being so...well...budgeting, I've been trying to cook more. As in every day. And my own personal rule for when we cook around here is, "When you cook something, double the recipe." That way the girls and I can have leftovers for lunch for the next couple of days, or the extra can be frozen and served for dinner next week, and when you don't enjoy cooking (as I don't), that's a big deal!

For my Matt's birthday, this meant carrot cake. I have a whole carrot cake Pinboard, just for dreaming about delicious carrot cake recipes to make for that Matt of mine. This birthday, however, I made him the ultimately simple carrot cake recipe from Made. And, of course, I doubled the recipe.

Goodness, that recipe makes a lot of carrot cake!

Inspired by our first Great Cookie Bake-Off that worked so well, every now and then the girls and I repeat the experience with some other amenable recipe. And it turns out that simple carrot cake batter, enough to make three dozen carrot cupcakes, is perfectly amenable to experimentation.

The bake-off rules:

1. We divide the recipe between us. 
2. We lay out every possible mix-in, from healthy to unhealthy and usual to unusual and just plain odd.
3. Every person is allowed to customize their own batter exactly how they want.
4. The results are baked and, inevitably, enjoyed by all.

The girls love this project--

--and always come up with excellent combinations, chock-full of pretzel M&Ms and dates and raisins and sprinkles and bits of candy.

When they were weary of experimentation, a good forty or so cupcakes later, I baked the rest up plain:

Yes, the recipe, doubled, made THAT many cupcakes!

My girls are excellent and creative chefs, of course, but I do have to say that this round decidedly goes to...ME! My carrot cupcakes with chocolate chips, candied ginger, crushed pineapple, and walnuts were scrumptious beyond compare.