Cakes & Bakes: Carrot muffins

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Home-made carrot muffins | H is for Home

Earlier this week, Justin bought a big bag of special offer carrots… and then, couple of days later, his mum gave us half a bag of her bulk buy special offer carrots. We had a sudden glut!

grated carrot, sultanas and chopped walnuts

So this week’s cake baking had to utilise some!

Adding pineapple to egg white, milk and vegetable oil mixture

Fortunately, we do love a good carrot cake, but decided on a little twist by making some carrot muffins with spiced Quark topping.

Spooning carrot muffin batter into cases

Cinnamon and pineapple are the dominant flavours – there’s a hint of ginger in there too.

Carrot muffins cooling on a wire rack

Quark a fairly unusual ingredient with a taste and consistency somewhere between crème fraîche and cream cheese. We think it worked really well.

Quark, sugar and cinnamon for muffin topping

The resulting carrot muffins are moist and full of flavour – and just a little bit different.

Adding Quark topping to the carrot muffins

It’s an easy recipe, so a batch can be knocked up quickly.

Home-made carrot muffins | H is for Home

They’re a great partner for that afternoon cup of tea we talked about recently.

Carrot muffins

Gemma Reece
Cook Time 25 minutes
Course Breakfast, Dessert

Ingredients
  

For the muffins

  • 2 tbs vegetable oil
  • 100 g/3½oz plain flour
  • 100 g/3½oz wholemeal flour
  • 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
  • ¼ tsp salt
  • 1 tsp ground cinnamon
  • ½ tsp ground ginger
  • 2 tbsp caster sugar
  • 2 egg whites
  • 5 tbsp semi-skimmed milk
  • 225 g/8oz canned pineapple chunks in juice drained & chopped
  • 250 g/9oz carrots grated
  • 40 g/1½oz sultanas
  • 40 g/1½oz walnuts chopped

For the topping

  • 250 g/9oz Quark or any low-fat soft cream cheese
  • ½ tbsp caster sugar
  • ½ tsp vanilla extract
  • ½ tsp ground cinnamon

Instructions
 

  • Preheat the oven to 190ºC/375ºF/Gas mark 5. Oil a 12-cup muffin tin with vegetable or line it with muffin paper cases
  • Sift the flours, bicarbonate of soda, salt, cinnamon and ginger into a mixing bowl. Add the caster sugar and mix together
  • In a separate bowl, whisk together the egg whites then pour the milk and the oil and mix together
  • Mash the pineapple chunks, then add to the egg mixture
  • Add the carrots, sultanas and walnuts and stir together gently
  • Add the fruit mixture to the flour mixture and gently stir together until just combined. Do not over-stir the mixture - it is fine for it to be a little lumpy
  • Divide the mixture evenly between the 12 cups in the muffin tin or paper cases (they should be about ⅔s full)
  • Transfer to the oven and bake for about 25 minutes or until risen and golden
  • While the muffins are in the oven, make the topping. Put the Quark into a mixing bowl with the caster sugar, vanilla essence and 1 teaspoon of the cinnamon. Mix together well, then cover with cling film and transfer to the fridge until ready to use
  • When the muffins are cooked, remove them from the oven, put them on a wire rack and leave to cool. When they have cooled to room temperature, remove the topping from the fridge and spread some evenly over the top of each muffin
  • Lightly sprinkle over the remaining cinnamon and serve
Keyword cake, carrot, muffins

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