Spiced Carrot Muffins

I have been on the hunt for the past while to find a good carrot cake recipe. I LOVE carrot cake and so does the husband. I had a good recipe but it used way too much maple syrup (a.k.a. GOLD at our house). That stuff is way too expensive to use massive amounts of in one recipe. After a couple of not so good recipes, I finally found one that we will be keeping around for a while! The best thing about this recipe is that it doesn't use any maple syrup, yet is still very healthy. I found the recipe in Ellie Kreiger's cook book The Food You Crave (which has several great recipes!). This batch of muffins is a bit different than the last. I didn't have any canola oil, so I used additional applesauce and some fat free lemon yogurt. They turned out wonderful! I also added raisins and walnuts because carrot cake is not carrot cake without them to me. These are also wonderful with cream cheese frosting or a scoop of frozen yogurt. I hope you enjoy!!!


Carrot Cake Muffins
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg
1/4 cup oil
1/2 cup applesauce
3/4cups brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups shredded carrots
walnuts (optional)
raisins (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine the first 6 ingredients (dry ingredients). In a seperate bowl, combine oil, sugar, applesauce and eggs. Mix until well combined. Add shredded carrots to wet mixture and then add the vanilla. Add half of the dry ingredients to the wet mixture and mix until almost all combined. Add the rest of the dry ingredients and fold in until combined. Add raisins and nuts. Line a muffin tin with paper liners and spoon batter in 2/3 full. Bake the muffins for 18-20 minutes.

*I usually double the recipe and freeze them for a great snack!