quarantine cooking: healthy carrot muffins

Like many of you, I am baking a laughable amount during quarantine. Currently, we’ve got french toast, blueberry scones, cheddar scones, brown butter blondies, chocolate chip cookies, and the above-mentioned carrot muffins all hanging out on the counter, in the fridge, or freezer. But hey! It kills time, gives me an activity to do with Avvie, and I have fun experimenting with different types of flours and mix-ins.

We had a preponderance of carrots this week from our CSA box, and Avvie suggested muffins as a way to use some up. (She suggests muffins for everything, for what it’s worth). I wanted to create a version that was healthy enough that it could double as breakfast, since munching on one of these is the easiest and quickest meal imaginable. For me, “healthy” means higher protein, lower sugar and carbs than your average pastry; I’m all for the healthy fats. I started with Cookie + Kate’s Healthy Carrot Muffin recipe, but swapped out some of the whole wheat flour for almond flour, omitted the raisins (ick) and walnuts (too crunchy), and halved the amount of maple syrup. The result is a tender muffin (almond flour helps with that!) that’s just a touch sweet and a bit nutty, too. They might be my favorite thing I’ve baked in these six weeks.

INGREDIENTS

1 cup whole wheat flour
¾ cup almond flour
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground ginger
¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
2 cups peeled and grated carrots
⅓ cup melted coconut oil or extra-virgin olive oil
¼ cup maple syrup
2 eggs, at room temperature
1 cup plain, whole milk yogurt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

INSTRUCTIONS

Preheat oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit. If necessary, grease all 12 cups on your muffin tin with butter or non-stick cooking spray.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg. Add the grated carrots to the other ingredients and stir to combine.

Then, in a medium mixing bowl, combine the oil and maple syrup and beat together with a whisk. Add the eggs and beat well, then add the yogurt and vanilla and mix well. (If using coconut oil and it resolidifies after mixing, you can warm the mixture up in the microwave in 30-second bursts).

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and mix with a big spoon, until just combined.

Divide the batter evenly between the 12 muffin cups.

Bake muffins for 20 - 22 minutes, or until the muffins are golden on top and a toothpick inserted into a muffin comes out clean. (If you haven't cooked a lot with almond flour before, know that it makes baked goods more moist, so bake times will often be a little longer than when you're just using flour.)

Place the muffin tin on a cooling rack to cool. Store leftovers in fridge and warm up before serving!