Preheat oven to 375 degrees and line a muffin tin with paper liners. Grate the carrots on a box grater and then set aside.

In a separate medium-sized bowl, add all of the cream cheese filling ingredients and whisk to blend until perfectly smooth. Set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk sugar, oil, eggs and vanilla together until completely blended, then stir in carrots, salt and cinnamon. Sift the flour and baking soda on top of the wet ingredients and gently fold until completely blended. Set aside.

Add about 2 Tbsp of the carrot cake batter into the bottom of each muffin liner. Then, drop one heaping teaspoon of the cream cheese filling directly into the center of the batter. (You will not use up all of the filling at this point.) Use the remaining cake batter to fill each muffin to within about ¼" from the top. (Enough to completely cover the filling.)

Bake 18–20 minutes until the sides of the muffin are firm to the touch. (It is likely that the filling will have begun to ooze from the top of the muffins, which is what you want!) Remove the cakes from the oven and cool them on a rack for about 10 minutes.

While the cakes are cooling, fill a pastry bag with a small round tip (or resealable bag with the corner snipped) with your remaining cream cheese filling and pipe into the hole where the filling broke through the top of the muffin. (There will be a small hollow cavity inside the muffin that we want to fill with the remaining frosting.) Serve these fun original cakes warm or at room temperature. Enjoy!