Carrot Cake Muffins

Raise your hand if you also love carrot cake? I have a confession to make. I love carrot cake. Maybe because it’s a cake made with a vegetable. This sweet, spicy and moist cake is my favorite way to celebrate my birthday each year. A tradition that started with my dear friend Laura making me a delicious carrot cake for my birthday back in ~2009. 

With my carrot cake muffins, we can all yum over carrot cake all year long and feel great about the nutritional quality in the recipe. Because the typical carrot cake recipe (with cream cheese frosting) can be extremely high in calories, sugar and fat, you can feel good about this more nutritious (on-the-go) version which uses applesauce to cut back on oil.  Since carrots are naturally sweet, you’d never know there was only ½ cup brown sugar in this entire recipe.

Carrot Cake Muffins

Vegetarian, Dairy Free

Yield: Makes 12 muffins [1 muffin = 1 serving] / Prep Time: ~20 minutes / Cook Time: ~20 minutes

• ¼ cup unsweetened applesauce
• 1½ teaspoons canola oil
• ½ cup brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• ¾ cup finely chopped carrots (about 3-4 medium sized carrots)
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• ¼ teaspoon nutmeg
• 1½ teaspoons baking powder
• 1 cup all-purpose flour (to make gluten-free, you can use gluten-free baking flour)
• ¼ cup walnuts, chopped

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Line a muffin pan with twelve muffin liners.
2. Process carrots in a food processor until finely and evenly chopped.
3. In a large bowl or stand mixer, beat together applesauce, vegetable oil and sugar until combined. Mix in egg and vanilla. Add carrots and mix until combined.
4. Add the salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking powder, and flour to the applesauce mixture and mix well.
5. Divide batter evenly between muffin lined cups in muffin pan (a #40 cookie scoop works very well to portion batter into liners).
6. Top each muffin with a few chopped walnuts.
7. Bake for 17-20 minutes or just until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out mostly clean.
8. Cool on a wire rack.

Time-saving tip:
Baking cup liners will make it easy to get these muffins out of the pan with minimal clean-up. However, to avoid some of the muffin sticking to the inside of the liner, make sure the muffin is cooled completely before removing from the wrapper. Also, choose nonstick liners.

Storage: Store in an airtight container for one week or freeze the leftovers in a heavy duty freezer bag for up to 2 months.