Healthy Carrot Cake Muffins

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Healthy Carrot Cake Muffins – A little bite of carrot cake heaven – ZERO oil, ZERO refined sugar. Easy to make & delicious!

Don’t you just love it when a recipe comes together ? This Healthy Carrot Cake Muffins recipe comes in response to request from a fellow Tweep, Badger @ Badger Bakes for more healthy baking recipes.

One of the best parts of blogging is the pleasure you get from fellow bakers trying your recipes. When I first started out, my family were my only readers and I honestly didn’t think anyone else would ever read them. Since then, Ted’s Rolls have been a great sucess and I still love to see photos of fellow Tweeps’ freshly baked soft bread rolls.

Although the recipes on my blog are tried and tested in the Kitchen Shed, feedback is invaluable to me because I get to hear how recipes work using different ovens or slow cookers. Also, it’s good to know if my instructions are easy to follow.

Feedback from Badger @Badgers Bakes about my Healthy Blueberry and Orange Muffins was particularly good to hear: Badger doesn’t use oil in cooking and had tried my recipe without oil. The muffins received the seal of approval from Badger and her family, so much so that she has made several batches since. Keen to try the oil free version for myself, I was pleasantly surprised the muffins remain lovely and moist exactly as reported.

I’d had another sugar free idea in mind for a while and was keen to see if it too would work without oil. I wanted to try the flavours of carrot cake (one of my favourite cakes) in a muffin – not least because I’m always looking for an excuse to bake in my Lakeland Mini Loaf Tin. That said, you can of course use a regular muffin tin too. The sweetness in these Healthy Carrot Cake Muffins comes from the eating apples and carrots (both naturally sweet foods) so the sweeter the apple you use, the sweeter your muffins will be. I’ve added cinnamon, sultanas, walnuts and an optional creamy topping sweetened with maple syrup to complete the carrot cake experience – carrot cake heaven !

Healthy Carrot Cake Muffins

Healthy Carrot Cake Muffins - A little bite of carrot cake heaven - ZERO oil, ZERO refined sugar. Easy to make & delicious!

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Course: Healthy

Cuisine: Baking

Prep Time: 10 minutes minutes

Cook Time: 20 minutes minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes minutes

Servings: 12

Author: Sarah James

Ingredients

Muffins:

• 50 g ½ cup porridge oats plus extra for sprinkling
• 100 g ¾ cup white plain flour
• 100 g ¾ cup wholewheat plain flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• ½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• A pinch of salt
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 100 ml 7 tablespoons yoghurt
• 2 eggs beaten
• 6 tablespoons maple syrup honey
• Zest of an orange
• 2 eating apples grated I used Braeburn
• 100 g 1 cup about 2 to 3 carrots
• 50 g ½ cup chopped walnuts
• 75 g ½ cup sultanas

Optional creamy topping:

• 6 tablespoons mascarpone cheese
• 1 tablespoon maple syrup
• A splash of milk
• 1 tablespoon chopped walnuts
• A little orange zest

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Instructions

• Grease and line a 12 hole mini loaf tin or muffin tin and preheat oven to 200℃ / 400℉ /Gas Mark 6

The muffin mixture:

• Mix oats, flours, baking powder, bicarb, salt and cinnamon in a large mixing bowl and make a well in the centre.
• Whisk together the eggs, yoghurt and orange zest in a jug, pour onto the dry ingredients and briefly mix together.
• Add the apple, carrots, walnuts and sultanas and mix in until combined.
• Equally divide the mixture between the holes in your mini loaf tin or muffin tin, filling them to about three quarters full.
• Bake in the oven for 20 minutes until golden brown. Remove from the oven and leave to cool for 10 minutes before turning them out onto a cooling rack.

Optional Creamy Topping:

• Whisk the mascarpone and maple syrup together, adding a splash of milk to slacken the cream.
• Spread onto the top of each muffin and sprinkle with chopped walnuts and orange zest.

Notes

Don't over mix or you will have heavy muffins.
Healthy Carrot Cake Muffins freeze well.

Pin for later:

I’m entering Healthy Carrot Cake Muffins to a couple of food challenges this month:

• Dom’s Simply Eggcellent Challenge over at Belleau Kitchen.
• Treat Petite created  by Stuart over at Cakeyboi and Kat at The Baking Explorer, hosted this month by Lisa over at United Cakedom.

And linking to:

Fiesta Fridays