These easy carrot cake muffins, with a soft and moist texture, are made with orange zest and crushed walnuts. They are easy and quick to make at home within 45 minutes.
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Ingredients and substitutes
Flour – Use all-purpose flour.
Baking powder – It helps the dough to rise and create a fluffy, soft texture.
Salt and cinnamon – You can also add allspice, ground ginger, and nutmeg as additions, not replacements.
Fats – I use unsalted butter at room temperature and beat it with sugar as well as vegetable oil (such as canola oil), which adds softness to our easy carrot muffins.
Sugars – I make my muffins with brown sugar, but you can replace half of it with white granulated sugar if you want. I also use powdered sugar to create the icing.
Eggs – Eggs should be at room temperature to emulsify with butter.
Milk – Whole milk should be at room temperature. If you forgot to take it out from the fridge in advance, measure the right amount and heat it in the microwave for a little bit.
Add-ins – You can either grate your carrots or pulse them in a food processor until they resemble wet sand. I also add some roughly chopped walnuts and the zest of one orange, which you can replace with lemon. You’ll also need orange or lemon juice for the icing.
Cooking tips
Fold in the carrots using a rubber spatula. The carrot strings will be captured in the paddle attachment (or in your hand mixer attachments) if you add them too early. The best way is to add the carrots, walnuts, and zest at the very end and fold them in using a spatula.
Don’t overmix the batter. As usual, we need to mix the butter as little as possible (just until a homogenous consistency is achieved) so that we don’t promote gluten development, which will make the muffins' texture tough.
Step by step directions
1. Preheat the oven to 180C (355F) and line a muffin pan with 12 paper liners.
2. In a bowl, combine the flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, and cinnamon. Set aside.
3. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugar on medium for 3 minutes or until fluffy. Then, add the oil and beat again until incorporated.
4. Add the eggs one at a time and beat until the mixture has emulsified.
5. Add the dry ingredients in three parts – alternating with the milk, starting and ending with the dry ingredients – while beating on low until a homogenous and silky consistency is reached.
6. Then, fold in the carrots, orange zest, and walnuts using a rubber spatula.
7. Fill the paper liners ⅔ full and bake for 22-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the muffin in the middle of the pan comes out clean.
8. Remove from the oven and let the muffins rest for 5 minutes in the pan. Then, transfer onto a cooling rack to cool down to room temperature.
9. Combine the icing ingredients in a bowl and drizzle on top of the muffins.
Flavor and decoration variations
Cream cheese frosting – You can look up the recipe from my Red velvet cupcakes, or my Best vanilla cupcakes posts.
Salted caramel – Spicy carrot muffins flavor will go well with Salted caramel. Just drizzle a little bit on top of cooled muffins.
Vanilla extract – If you want, you can add ½ teaspoon of vanilla to make your muffins even more delicious.
FAQ
Store completely cooled muffins in an air-tight container, or covered with plastic wrap on a plate at room temperature for up to 4 days. If frosted with cream cheese frosting, they should also be stored for up to 4 days but in the fridge.
If you need to bake your muffins in batches, the batter can wait for 25 minutes at room temperature. However, it’s not recommended to store it for a long time.
Yes, you can! Freeze them for up to 2 months.
More muffins recipes
Recipe card
Carrot cake muffins
Equipment
- Digital kitchen scale
- Stand mixer or hand mixer and a large mixing bowl
- Muffin pan
- Muffin liners
Ingredients
- 200 g all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 130 g butter
- 30 g vegetable oil
- 200 g brown sugar
- 2 large eggs at room temperature
- 160 ml whole milk at room temperature
- 80 g carrot finely grated
- 1 orange zest
- 40 g walnuts roughly chopped
Icing
- 60 g powdered sugar
- 1 tablespoon orange juice
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 180C (355F) and line a muffin pan with 12 paper liners.
- In a bowl, combine the flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, and cinnamon. Set aside.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment (or use a hand mixer and a bowl), beat the butter and sugar on medium for 3 minutes or until fluffy. Then, add the oil and beat again until incorporated.
- Add the eggs one at a time and beat until the mixture has emulsified.
- Add the dry ingredients in three parts – alternating with the milk, starting and ending with the dry ingredients – while beating on low until a homogenous and silky consistency is reached. The pattern should look like this: dry/milk/dry/milk/dry.
- Then, fold in the carrots, orange zest, and walnuts using a rubber spatula.
- Fill the paper liners ⅔ full and bake for 22-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the muffin in the middle of the pan comes out clean.
- Remove from the oven and let the muffins rest for 5 minutes in the pan. Then, transfer onto a cooling rack to cool down to room temperature.
- Combine the icing ingredients in a bowl and drizzle on top of the muffins.
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