Warm Carrot Muffins

It's been a busy couple of months. November is over, and I spent most of my available writing time working on a novel for National Novel Writing Month. I continued writing on through December, but I never stopped cooking.

In the last two months, I've made plenty of cookies (mint chocolate, sugar, molasses, ginger-lemon), spicy chipotle short ribs, a tasty turnip gratin, garlic tomato soup, pork chorizo burgers, the best roasted potatoes, Thai coconut soup, and today, some warm carrot muffins. I wish I could share everything with you but I'll have to save most of them for another day. The muffins are at the forefront today.

They're called Happy Morning Muffins and come from Small Batch Baking, a cookbook that has yet to fail me. It has produced bacon biscuits that are savory and buttery and made with bacon fat, and infused with bacon flavor. The almond crumble from this book is my go to dessert when I want to make something quick in a single ramekin, and doubles or triples well for a group. And yesterday I grated some carrots and chopped some pineapple, and mixed up some batter to bake this happy morning when I'm not at work and looking forward to beautiful day because the sun is out for the first time in weeks!


The muffins are displayed on my brand new cake stand (thanks Moe!) and I think they could have come right out of the bakery case. They are moist from all the pineapple and carrot, and spiced with cinnamon and vanilla. You can mess around with the ingredients, vary the nuts, use apple instead of pineapple, or other dried fruits instead of raisins. Whatever makes you happy.

Happy Morning Muffins

I altered the original recipe so this one makes 10-12 small muffins, which really make an appropriate serving size (but you might feel like eating more than one...)

Ingredients:
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
4 tablespoons canned crushed pineapple, or fresh chopped in a food processor
1 cup coarsely grated carrots
1/2 cup chopped nuts (pecans or walnuts)
4 tablespoons raisins
2 tablespoons sweetened flaked coconut

10 - 12 small muffin cups

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Place a fine-mesh sieve over a large mixing bowl. Place the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon in the sieve and sift the ingredients into the bowl.

Place the sugar, eggs, oil, and vanilla in a small bowl and whisk to blend. Stir in the crushed pineapple. Add the wet ingredients to the flour mixture all at once, and stir just until the dry ingredients are moistened. Then stir in the carrots, nuts, raisins, and coconut.

Arrange the muffin cups in a muffin pan or on a baking sheet. Spoon the batter into the muffin cups, filling them about three-quarters of the way.

Bake the muffins until a toothpick inserted in the center of one comes out clean, 28 to 30 minutes. Remove and cool 10-15 minutes before serving. They are best served warm or will keep one day in a plastic bag at room temperature.