Carrot Muffins. With Icing. Because Icing Is Good.

This one was eaten up real fast.

Hello. You sure look nice today.

I, on the other hand, am wearing a mismatched jogging outfit (no real jogging going on, don't worry) with a bedhead side ponytail. It's a really good look for me.

This weekend has been sloooooow-paced. I did manage get out of the house for a few minutes of fresh air today. I tried to smash the last piece of ice that's frozen on our back deck. Just so it would look more like spring. It turns out that ice chunks are hard to break with flimsy plastic shovels. So I came back in the house and made muffins instead. 

Earlier this week I promised Alex that I would bake him a cake. I was dead set on making a big, round, two-layer, frosted carrot cake. Buuuut, since it would only be the two of us eating a giant cake, I thought muffins would be a better idea.

I'm seeing better already.



I found the best recipe ever from a blog called Culinary Life in Berlin. The blog's name sure sounds fancy. It was the only (good-looking) carrot muffin recipe I could find that didn't have apples and coconut in it. The recipe claims that the muffins are very moist. The recipe is........ correct. Mmmmmmmoist. (I totally didn't make that sound while I ate the first one. That would be creepy.)

Tip: Don't grate your fingers. It hurts.

I made a few tiny tweaks to the recipe (half the salt, canola oil instead of olive oil, etc.). I'll post the adapted recipe.

Carrot Muffins That Will Make Your Husband Like You Even Though You Dragged Him to Five Different Home Decor Stores This Weekend

Ingredients:

3 cups grated carrot

4 large eggs

2 cups all purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon salt (I reduced the salt to ½ tsp)

2 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon of vanilla

1 1/2 cups of sugar

1 1/4 cups of oil (I used canola oil)

(I omitted the raisins and walnuts, blech)

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 310°F. Butter and flour or add paper liners to muffin tins.

2. In a medium bowl, mix the flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon.

3. In a large bowl, mix the sugar and oil together. Then add in the eggs, one at a time, mixing for about 30 seconds each.

4. Add flour mixture to wet ingredients and stir until just blended. Fold in carrots.

5. Pour batter into muffin tins. Bake muffins for 20-22 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

6. Cool muffins in the pans for at 10-15 minutes before transferring to wire racks.



Makes about 20 muffins. That's 10 each if there are two of you.


Cream Cheese Icing:

1 pkg cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup butter, softened
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 cup icing sugar

In bowl, beat cream cheese with butter until smooth. Beat in vanilla. Beat in icing sugar, one-third at a time, until smooth. Spread over top of muffins.

So, so, so, so good.