Recipe: Carrot and Walnut Muffins

Yesterday morning I made some Wholemeal Carrot and Walnut Muffins, and they are actually awesome. I've never baked with wholemeal flour before and thought that they turned out really nicely. The recipe I used is roughly the recipe used on Anna Saccone's banana muffin video.

I had absolutely loads of carrots that needed using, so decided to making 'carrot cake muffins' would be a great way to use them up - especially because I don't have a juicer.. wah! There are so many different recipes for carrot cake and carrot muffins, but I really liked the look and sound of this recipe because of how little sugar it uses. I know there's still a bit of sugar in them, but a lot of the natural sweetness comes from the dates which is pretty cool.

I also really just wanted to see if wholemeal flour would be that different... and it wasn't, so I'll be using that loads more in my cooking! :D

I completely winged it in terms of the icing - I had a little container left of icing sugar (probably about half a cup?) and a tub of cream cheese and mixed it all together.. the end result wasn't too shabby!

To make the muffins you will need:

2 cups wholemeal self raising flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 level tsp of each: nutmeg, cinnamon, allspice

2/3 cup light brown sugar

1/2 cup sunflower seeds

1/2 cup walnuts, chopped small

3/4 cup dates, chopped small

2 eggs

1/3 cup butter, melted

1/2 cup milk

3 large carrots, grated

1/2 cup vegetable oil

To make the cream cheese icing you will need:

1/2 cup icing sugar

250g tub light spreadable cream cheese

walnuts to decorate

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Method

1. Preheat the oven to 190°C/170°C fan forced

2. Sift flour, baking powder and spices, add in leftover wholemeal chunks

3. Add brown sugar, seeds, walnuts and dates

4. Stir dry mixture until well mixed

5. In a separate bowl, lightly beat eggs

6. Add butter and milk to eggs, stir

7. Add wet mixture and grated carrot all at once

8. Stir until just combined - don't over stir! - adding in oil as you go to ensure mixture is moist enough

9. Bake for 25 minutes/until the tops spring back when lightly pressed

10. While these are cooling, put icing sugar and cream cheese into a bowl and whisk until soft

11. When the muffins are completely cool, ice them and decorate

Enjoy!

:) Jessie xx

Comments

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