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Carrot Cake Muffins have all the flavors of carrot cake that you love, but in muffin size. Sweet, ultra-moist, with a hint of cinnamon and perfectly fluffy texture. Great for breakfast, snack time, or grab-and-go meals on the fly!
Carrot cake is one of those things that I fought liking for so long. I don’t know, the idea of carrots AND cake? I was super skeptical. I mean, it took me a while to come around to zucchini in my breads and sweets too. (Like this Zucchini Sheet Cake.) But, not quite as long though I guess because my mom used to make zucchini breads and cakes in the summer so I had come around to that idea a lot sooner.
It wasn’t until I was basically tricked into eating carrot cake that I realized I liked it so much. I was at a friend’s wedding and there were four options of cake from which to choose. My husband (being the amazing human he is) brought over all four kinds for us to try. As I had spent the night dancing and talking to everyone and generally having just a magical time, I wasn’t really paying attention to the cake I was diving into. I didn’t even ask which flavor was which. I assumed you know, there would be chocolate, vanilla, and a couple fancy ones.
I bit into the carrot cake, marveled at how delicious it was, and then asked what I was eating. Imagine my surprise when I was told it was carrot cake! I had no idea how delicious it could be. Sweet, and a little earthy, but also perfectly moist and cakey like a cake should be. Plus, it was topped with cream cheese frosting, so, needless to say I was won completely over and the rest is history!
Here’s How You Make It
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line a muffin tin with paper or silicone cupcake liners. No liners? No problem — grease the muffin tin thoroughly.
Next, in a medium bowl whisk together the flour, sugar, cinnamon, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.
In another bowl, add together the oil, brown sugar, eggs, and vanilla and mix well. Stir in the freshly grated carrots.
Add the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until they are all completely incorporated.
Fill each muffin liner with batter about ⅔ full. You want to leave room for them to rise. Pop them in the oven and cook for 20-22 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Allow them to cool for 5 minutes before putting on a cooling rack to finish cooling all the way.
In this recipe, I suggest you use eggs at room temperature. Why? Well, because eggs that are at room temperature are less viscous than cold eggs. Meaning, they are thinner. When the eggs are thinner, they mix into the batter better and they also allow the baked goods to rise more. It also keeps the batter from being too cold, and thus allowing them to cook faster.
How to Bring Eggs to Room Temperature
I almost always forget to get my eggs out before I start baking to bring them to room temperature. If you can remember, then take them about 30 minutes to an hour before beginning this recipe. If you don’t remember, then there are some tricks to bringing the eggs up to room temperature safely:
Fill a bowl with warm water and add the eggs to the water. It shouldn’t be too hot, just warm water is fine. Let them sit for 5-10 minutes to warm up. You might need to change the water once or twice.
If you’re in a real hurry, put your eggs in a bowl and let warm water continuously run over the eggs until they are room temperature. Don’t let the water get too hot or you’ll end up with hard-boiled eggs.
How to Shred Carrots for Cake
I mention that you should use freshly ground carrots in these muffins. Avoid buying pre-shredded carrots, they will not be moist enough and you’ll end up with hard matchsticks of carrots in your muffins, which you don’t want. Shredding carrots is easy though. Use the regular, large-size carrots for best results though (and to save your fingers from the grater while trying to grate up baby carrots!). Here are a few options for getting the job done:
Use a vegetable peeler. This will take a little longer, but allows you to control the peeling a bit better. Though you’ll need to make shorter peels to bake with, not really long, carrot-length peels.
Use a box grater on the finest grating option.
Use a food processor or blender if you want the carrots to be really good and incorporated. It depends on how you feel about bits of carrot in your muffins. Some like them more than others.
Use a grating attachment on your food processor. This should attach to the top of the bowl, then you feed the carrot to the shredder via the tube at the top. Follow your instruction manual for exact directions.
These are amazing right out of the oven (cooled a little, of course), smeared in butter and drizzled in honey! Mmmm…be right back off to make another batch!
Carrot Cake Muffins have all the flavors of carrot cake that you love, but in muffin size. Sweet, cinnamony, moist, and with just a hint of that carrot taste and texture you love. Great for breakfast, snack time, or grab-and-go meals on the fly!
2cupsfinely grated carrots, not pre-shredded carrots, they should be freshly grated
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line a muffin tin with paper or silicone cupcake liners (or grease well with cooking spray).
In a medium bowl whisk together flour, sugar, cinnamon, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.
In a large bowl combine oil, brown sugar, eggs, and vanilla and mix well. Stir in grated carrots.
Stir dry ingredients into wet ingredients until completely incorporated.
Fill muffin liners 2/3 full.
Bake in preheated oven for 20-22 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the center of the muffins comes out clean. Cool for 5 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack to continue cooling.
Serve fresh or store in airtight container at room temperature up to 3 days, or in the fridge up to 2 weeks. Optional: reheat them in the microwave for about 15 seconds and spread a little butter on top for the ultimate breakfast treat.
Notes
For cinnamon lovers: Double the cinnamon!These can be made in mini muffin tins, simply reduce the time and pull them out when an inserted toothpick comes out clean besides a few moist crumbs.
Hey there, I’m Tiffany – chef, photographer, mother, and avid taco eater. I am passionate about turning simple flavors and ingredients into tasty meals the whole family will love, with minimal prep and cleanup so there’s more time to spend eating and enjoying. Stay awhile, and help yourself to a taco or two!
These were excellent! However a little on sweet side for me. I would probably do 3/4 cup sugar next time. Otherwise, they were perfect. Will definitely be making again.
These were absolutely delicious. I realized after starting my milk was old, so swapped for oat milk instead. I used the dark pampered chef mini muffin pan so decreased the temperature by 25 degrees and only cooked for 18 minutes – they came out perfect with slightly crisped edges from greasing the pan. Everyone in the house loves these.
You can use baking powder. It does the same thing as baking soda it’s just not as strong so you need to use three times the amount of powder. Because this recipe calls for both, you need to use 2 teaspoons of baking powder.
First time on this site. That said, these were the best carrot muffins I ever made. I made three alterations, but I still think the recipe was excellent on its own. The three alterations were that I added half tsp or so of cardamom, tbs or so of grated orange peel, and 2 tbs or so of fresh OJ. Also I grated the carrots finer than I typically do. I think the carrot flavor comes out better. Magnifico!
I’m making these this morning to try and I have no doubts this will be incredibly limitless in flavor! I’m going to double the cinnamon, but instead use my TJs pumpkin spice blend for the season! Thank you for sharing your creation!
I switched the 1 cup sugar in the dry ingredients to 1/2 cup white sugar and 1/2 cup brown sugar, then totally eliminated the brown sugar called for with the wet ingredients. Replaced half the grated carrots with 1/2 cup drained crushed pineapple. Distributed the batter evenly among 12 muffin cups, and baked 20 minutes until internal temp was 205. They are beautiful and tasty (still a bit too sweet).
These turned out delicious
I did tweak the recipe a bit. Decreased the sugar by half a cup, increased cinnamon and added walnuts.
They were moist and flavorful
I wish I could award more stars. This is the yummiest recipe – but definitely take Tiffany’s advice and double the cinnamon. I’ve just made it for the 3rd (or maybe 4th) time, this time with gluten free flour. Still my favourite recipe in ages. I send it to everyone I know 😃
I’ve made these in muffin form a thousand times and they’re always amazing! I was wondering if I could use this same recipe in a cake pan to make cake?
Food is good, wife is happy! but carrot cruncy? Why? Too many egg? Not enough salt? WHY WHY WHY?
-Mr. Mak and household
Did you use pre-shredded carrots? How long where your carrot pieces after you peeled them?
These were excellent! However a little on sweet side for me. I would probably do 3/4 cup sugar next time. Otherwise, they were perfect. Will definitely be making again.
These were absolutely delicious. I realized after starting my milk was old, so swapped for oat milk instead. I used the dark pampered chef mini muffin pan so decreased the temperature by 25 degrees and only cooked for 18 minutes – they came out perfect with slightly crisped edges from greasing the pan. Everyone in the house loves these.
Is it ok to leave out the baking soda? All i have is baking powder. I have all the
ingredients other than that.
You can use baking powder. It does the same thing as baking soda it’s just not as strong so you need to use three times the amount of powder. Because this recipe calls for both, you need to use 2 teaspoons of baking powder.
First time on this site. That said, these were the best carrot muffins I ever made. I made three alterations, but I still think the recipe was excellent on its own. The three alterations were that I added half tsp or so of cardamom, tbs or so of grated orange peel, and 2 tbs or so of fresh OJ. Also I grated the carrots finer than I typically do. I think the carrot flavor comes out better. Magnifico!
I’m making these this morning to try and I have no doubts this will be incredibly limitless in flavor! I’m going to double the cinnamon, but instead use my TJs pumpkin spice blend for the season! Thank you for sharing your creation!
I switched the 1 cup sugar in the dry ingredients to 1/2 cup white sugar and 1/2 cup brown sugar, then totally eliminated the brown sugar called for with the wet ingredients. Replaced half the grated carrots with 1/2 cup drained crushed pineapple. Distributed the batter evenly among 12 muffin cups, and baked 20 minutes until internal temp was 205. They are beautiful and tasty (still a bit too sweet).
These turned out delicious
I did tweak the recipe a bit. Decreased the sugar by half a cup, increased cinnamon and added walnuts.
They were moist and flavorful
I wish I could award more stars. This is the yummiest recipe – but definitely take Tiffany’s advice and double the cinnamon. I’ve just made it for the 3rd (or maybe 4th) time, this time with gluten free flour. Still my favourite recipe in ages. I send it to everyone I know 😃
Nice texture and yummy but very sweet. I used less sugar than the recipe but they were still too sweet for me and the kids
I’ve made these in muffin form a thousand times and they’re always amazing! I was wondering if I could use this same recipe in a cake pan to make cake?
I’m so glad you love them! Yes, you can make this recipe in a cake pan. Bake until golden on the edges.