I don't think I have ever consumed a carrot muffin before, so its actually a little confusing that when I noticed some leftover carrots in my fridge last week, I thought it would be a great idea to make carrot muffins. Wherever the initial urge may have come from though, I am definitely happy I decided to start looking up carrot muffin recipes because 1) the muffins were AMAZING, and 2) I noticed that a number of popular recipes online incorporated apples into carrot muffins. I had one remaining Empire apple on my countertop that had I not baked it into something, I probably would have just thrown it away (though I would have undoubtedly experienced a lot of associated guilt for not eating it).
None of the carrot/apple carrot recipes online or in my cookbooks could be made with only ingredients in my kitchen, so I decided to improvise an apple carrot muffin recipe based on the great Muffin Madness base in the Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home cookbook (on google books now). I wasn't entirely sure how the muffins would turn out because the carrot/apple mixture seemed to have a different texture than the suggested modifications contained in the original recipe, so I didn't know what proportions of carrot and apple made sense in relation to the batter base. My worry about the edibility of these muffins continued until the muffins came out of the oven because the muffin batter was incredibly dense and seemed too dry after I stirred in all of the ingredients, and the muffins were well under-baked at the 20 minute time called for in the original recipe.
Thankfully though I resisted the urge to throw them away and continued to bake them an additional 5 – 7 minutes. The baked muffins really were wonderful — lightweight, perfectly spiced, and very lightly sweetened. They had great color with orange and light apple-colored flecks showing throughout the surface. I couldn't really taste the carrot at all, rather just the apple (which maybe is how apple carrot muffins generally taste?). I brought the muffins in to my Tuesday printmaking class, and they were definitely a huge hit with multiple people asking me for the recipe! The recipe modifications follow the picture below.
Apple Carrot Muffins — Modifications to the Moosewood Muffin Madness Recipe
- Added 1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon and 1/4 tsp. ground ginger to the dry ingredients
- Added 1.5 cups grated carrot (from 3 medium peeled carrots) and 1 Empire apple, peeled, cored, and chopped into small pieces (NOT grated) to batter at the end.
- Baked for 25 – 27 minutes, until a wooden skewer came out clean.
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