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.

Carrot muffins

Gemma Reece

Print recipe Pin recipe

Cook Time 25

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

Viva Vegetables

'Viva Vegetables' blog post banner

Viva Vegetables medium tote bags

Win one of these gorgeous tote bags – they’re from the Viva Vegetables range, one of the new Spring 2015 collections from the folks at Talented.

Even if you’re a complete carnivore, you’ll love this quirky range of colourful canvas bags. They’re both attractive and versatile.

Talented is an eco-company based in Sheffield specialising in creatively driven, sustainable accessories and tote bags. The brand celebrates the bag as an art form and collaborates with upcoming British artists, designers and print makers on a seasonal rotation.

Viva Vegetables is designed by American crafter Leslie Astor who now lives here in the UK. Leslie’s four designs pay homage to a few of Britain’s favourite vegetables. Large-scale prints of broccoli, carrots, beetroot and asparagus adorn the colourfully dyed canvas tote bags. Viva Vegetables small tote bags

The collection is inspired by the farmers’ market at Grand Army Plaza in New York City. When Leslie lived in Brooklyn, she and her family would visit the market every Saturday.

Leslie said:

“A tote bag gets out and about and exposed to a lot of eyes in a lot of different contexts: the subway, the office, the grocery store, the park – maybe all of those places in a day. Given that fact, I wanted my series of totes to be conversation starters, and I think they are.”

Viva Vegetables are made and printed at a fair-trade certified factory in India and are available in 2 sizes – medium tote bag and mini tote bag. They’re available to buy from the doodle bag website.

For your chance to win one, just comment below telling us which size & design you’d like and how you’d use it. To carry your lunch to work? A school bag for your child? To pop to the shops? Something else entirely? 🙂

Viva Vegetables tote bag

Growing our own

This year we decided to grow more of our own – and we’ve got no excuse, as Todmorden‘s the home of Incredible Edible.

We have a variety of crops to look forward to in the coming weeks.

Most of them are growing in containers as much of our garden is paved with stone cobbles. It also makes protecting them from the ubiquitous slugs & snails much easier.

We use lots of the old galvanised metal ‘dolly tubs’, buckets and bins.

The plants seem to like it!

Potatoes, beetroot, carrots, tomatoes, rhubarb, strawberries, broccoli, courgettes, squash, peashoots, salad leaves, a variety of herbs – and yes, those are figs.

There’s still a little room for some flowers.

Perennials like the hostas, astilbes and lupins return each year like old friends. Although this year’s harsh winter saw a few losses.

To these we add a few annuals – osteospermums, lobelia and the like.

We’ve enjoyed working in the garden this year, growing our own. We don’t think self-sufficiency is here just yet – but hopefully we’ll reap some rewards!

H is for Home Harbinger

Tag: carrots