The backstory for this recipe is pretty simple. I wanted to have a tea party. I wanted to serve carrot cake muffins at said tea party. I dug through some recipes and decided I liked this one the best. I don’t know about all the other carrot cake muffin recipes out there — I haven’t tried ’em — but I do know that this one is wonderful.
My recipe below is adapted slightly from a recipe I found here at LittleSpiceJar.com. Normally, I would shy away from a recipe with so many ingredients, but for this occasion, I liked the idea of having carrot cake muffins with a little bit of everything inside. Totally worth it!
Here we go:
Ingredients
(Makes about 18 muffins.)
*About the ginger: The original recipe called for powdered ginger, as above. I wrote up the recipe like that because that’s easier than what I did, but for your reference … what I did was this: Make a simple ginger syrup by combining a 1:1:1 ratio of sugar, water, and minced fresh ginger in a saucepan. (I did 1/2 cup each.) Bring this to a boil and simmer it for a while. The longer the better, really. Then strain out the minced ginger and put the syrup in your fridge. It makes a great beverage when mixed with sparkling water. Plus, now you have tenderized, sweetened, minced ginger. Use 2 generous tablespoons of this simmered, minced ginger in your batch of muffins. It’s lovely.
Preparation
1) Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Line muffin pan with liners, sprinkle half the oats into the baking cups and set aside.
2) In a medium bowl, mix together whole wheat flour, all purpose flour, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, and salt. Set these aside. (If you’re using the minced fresh ginger, don’t add it until you fold in the shredded carrot at the end.)
3) In a large bowl, combine the sugar, maple syrup, and coconut oil. Mix in the yogurt, apple sauce, eggs, and vanilla. Mix until fully combined.
4) With a spatula, manually stir the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until just combined and all flour pockets are gone – do not overmix. Fold in the shredded carrots, shredded coconut, raisins, and walnuts. Spoon the batter into the baking cups. I found that these muffins didn’t rise very much, so feel free to fill each baking cup with batter. Sprinkle the remaining oats on top. Here’s what mine looked like before they went in the oven:
5) Bake for 20 – 23 minutes or until a tooth pick inserted in the center comes out clean. Marvelous muffins! Nature’s perfect food.
