Carrot Nut Muffins

There is nothing quite like the smell of cinnamon and brown sugar wafting through the air and making your kitchen smell like a bakery.

In less than an hour you can make and bake 24 of the most delicious muffins for you and your family. The aroma in my kitchen while they were baking and cooling on the racks was intoxicating. I am totally in love with this recipe for Carrot Nut Muffins.

If you follow my blog you know that I consider myself more of a cook than a baker and you know that I hate recipes where you have to sift ingredients. This recipe is adapted from one of my Williams-Sonoma cookbooks, called "Muffins". One of the things I definitely changed was that I did not sift any of the ingredients and hoped that my mixing method would work. It did work and the muffins taste incredible. These have the consistency of a muffin with all the flavor from a carrot cake batter which is what I wanted to achieve.

What I did differently was to not sift the ingredients, I added vanilla to the recipe and I changed from 2 cups of all white sugar to adding some light brown sugar which I believe made these muffins even better. The color is darker and the flavor is richer.

So here is the adapted recipe:

Dry Ingredients:

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 cups white granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup light brown sugar
• 2 tsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 2 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp. allspice
• 1 1/2 cups chopped walnuts or pecans
• 1 1/2 cups shredded carrots

Wet Ingredients:

• 4 eggs
• 1 cup canola or vegetable oil
• 1 tsp. vanilla

1. In a large bowl combine the flour, sugars, baking powder, baking soda and the salt, cinnamon and allspice. Mix well with your hands and break down the brown sugar. Then using a hand held mixer on low, mix for about a minute. Set aside.
2. Chop your nuts in a food processor and mix in with the dry ingredients.
3. Peel, then shred your carrots using your food processor or a box grater.
4. In another bowl mix the eggs, vanilla and oil with a whisk.
5. Add the wet ingredients to the bowl of dry ingredients and mix on low speed using a hand held mixer. Scrap the sides and bottom of the bowl until everything is incorporated. It will be a "heavy" batter and that's okay.
6. Fold in the shredded carrots.
7. Using a scoop if you have one, place batter in muffin tins lined with cupcake holders. Fill the holder about 3/4 full of batter. Or, spray the tins with some cooking spray and add the batter right in the tin without holders.
8. Bake in a preheated 350° oven for 20-25 minutes until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. I set my timer for 25 minutes and feel these came out perfect at that amount of time.

Let the muffins cool for 5-10 minutes and remove from the pans.

Be sure to enjoy these muffins for breakfast, in your lunches for work or for after school treats (You can't pack them for school because of the nuts.), or perhaps top them with your favorite cream cheese frosting for a dessert in the evening.

It cost approximately $6.20 to make these Carrot Nut Muffins, which works out to 25¢ per muffin. Sealed properly, some of these could be popped in your freezer to have at another time. Be sure to label and date them if you do freeze some.


With the remainder that were not eaten the first day, I frosted some with some homemade Cream Cheese Frosting.