#MuffinMonday: Apple Carrot Muffins

#MuffinMonday is a group of muffin loving bakers who get together once a month to bake muffins to brighten their Mondays. There isn’t a theme to #MuffinMonday posts so anything goes, as long as it’s a muffin!

You can see all our of lovely muffins by following our Pinterest board. Updated links for all of our past events and more information about Muffin Monday can be found on our home page.

My cookbook library received a well deserved expansion this past Christmas and we excitedly started cooking out of them immediately. One of the books I received was a signed copy of Giada’s Happy Cooking. This cookbook is quite different from her previous cookbooks in both feel and format. Looking through the book makes me feel like I’m going through a beautiful magazine instead of a book book. There’s even a very honest introduction written by Giada.

The first thing we made were the black bean brownies. All I can say is these were… different. To be fair, we changed it up and used a can of refried black beans instead of regular black beans. Stuart took the interesting result to work for others to try our experiment. Successful wouldn’t be the term to describe that baking adventure! Maybe we’ll give them another go and follow her recipe exactly.

Today’s muffins came from Happy Cooking. I did have to use all AP flour because I was out of wheat flour and omitted the flax meal. As always, I used cinnamon applesauce in place of the unsweeted regular applesauce called for. I also substituted golden raisins in place of dried goji berries. (I wouldn’t recommend shredding baby carrots, but you do what you gotta do!) Even with my changes, these muffins were definitely successful!

This recipe makes one dozen muffins.

Carrot and Apple Muffins

Ingredients:

• 6 tbsp butter, at room temperature
• 1 C dark brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/4 C flour
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/8 tsp allspice
• 1/4 C cinnamon applesauce
• 1/4 C apple juice
• 1/2 – 2/3 C shredded carrot
• 1/4 C golden raisins

Steps:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a muffin tin with liners.
2. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and brown sugar until fluffy. Add in the eggs, one at a time.
3. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, salt, and allspice. Add half of the flour mixture to the stand mixer and mix until combined.
4. Add the applesauce and apple juice. Mix until incorporated.
5. Add the remaining flour mixture and mix until combined. Fold in the carrot and raisins.
6. Divide batter among the prepared muffin tin.
7. Bake 18 – 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out cleanly. Allow muffins to cool in the pan 5 minutes before removing to a cooling rack.

*This recipe is modified from Giada’s Happy Cooking*

And don’t forget to check out these other muffin recipes:

Blueberry Cornmeal Sourdough Muffins from Karen’s Kitchen Stories

Cherry Chocolate Chip Muffins from Palatable Pastime

Cinnamon Molasses Muffins from Passion Kneaded

Cranberry White Chocolate Muffins from Making Miracles

Peanut Butter Cup Stuffed Chocolate Muffins from Food Lust People Love

Sour Cream and Green Onion Corn Muffins from A Day in the Life on the Farm

Spicy and Sweet Hummus Muffins from Kelli’s Kitchen

Strawberry Vanilla Yogurt Muffins from Farm Fresh Feasts

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