Cakes & Bakes: Carrot muffins

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Carrot muffins

Course Breakfast, Dessert

Keyword cake, carrot, muffins

Cook Time 25 minutes minutes

Author Gemma Reece

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