Carrot Cake Muffins

I have been craving for these for over 2 years now (appro the gentle push of a friend I have got down to baking these with my sous chef, and guest of today's article Nisha S Das aka NSD. :)



Things you will need for this muffin:

• 1 cup (100 grams) walnuts
• 340 grams raw carrots (finely grated)
• 260 grams flour/maida
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 8 egg whites
• 360 grams white sugar
• 120 grams butter
• 120 grams olive oil / any other vegetable oil
• 3 tsp pure vanilla extract

First I asked NSD to finely grate the 2 1/2 carrots that approximately weighed 340 grams on my analogue food scale. She did so,  effortlessly. 

I made NSD grind 4 cinnamon sticks to a fine powder. 

In the meantime I roasted the walnuts on a dry heated pan for about 2 minutes, by stirring them continuously without adding oil and keeping the heat at medium. After 2 minutes I set them on a plate to cool.

I sifted the flour baking soda, baking powder, flour and cinnamon and set aside.

Now I separated the egg whites from the eggs.

 

I weighed out 120 gm of butter and put it in microwave for 30 secs to melt it. Then I added 120 ml oil & 120 gm of molten butter, sugar &  vanilla extract.

Then I added it to the electric mixer and I let it whip for a minute or two. I poured this into a deep vessel and slowly folded in the flour to the mixture, followed by carrots and walnuts. 

Before I start baking, I always do a quick microwave test for 2 minutes to check texture and taste. It tasted very good and it was something to keep us satisfied till the real thing came along.

Now comes the real part: Arrange the muffin tray. I have a silicon muffin tray so I filled the tray with muffin cups. I took 3 tbsp olive oil in a small bowl and dip my fingertips in the oil and lubricate these cups so that the batter doesn't stick to the paper once it's done baking. I tried initially with 1/2 cup batter but then I fill the cups to 3/4 with batter and set the timer for 20 minutes. The oven has a tendency to burn the cake from below so I add in a bowl of  salt water at the base of the oven to maintain temperature @180F. Normally it should take 10-15 minutes.

The 1/2 filled muffins took 15 minutes but the 3/4 filled took 20 minutes.
At this time a fork poked(actually a tooth pick should be inserted, but since i didn't have that) should come out clean or bake it  for a minute or two, more , but  be out on the lookout,  not to over cook it.

 

This is how the 1/2 cup muffins look.

Later I tried 3/4 filled cups, this is how the muffins looked.

Ideally this should be served with cream cheese frosting but by this time it was 2 AM in the morning and I was beyond tired after a hard day's work. I thought I'll do the cream cheese frosting some other day. And some other day I did.

Stay tuned for my pumpkin muffin with cream cheese frosting recipe. :)