We are offically in warm spices and the smell of baked goods season, also known as “fall,” and I am THRILLED. I really don’t know how to make you understand how much I love this time of year, but to start, I’ll share this recipe for Carrot Cake Muffins. In the summer, I’m all about the blueberry and fruit options, but come fall, I want spices. These muffins are are warm and tender and filled with cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg. Of course, there are also plenty of carrots and the crunchiest little muffin tops that make me want to forget all other fall muffin recipes (I’m looking at you pumpkin). If you are looking for recipes for carrot cake muffins, then friend, you are most definitely in the right place. There is no filling or icing on these, which in my opinion would take them from muffin to cupcake territory. No. These are muffins that you can justify eating with your cup of coffee for breakfast in the morning. In fact, I do. Or in the afternoon. Or whenever a muffin snack sounds like a good idea. These muffins are an ode to my favorite ever muffins, the carrot walnut muffins at the Garden Cafe in Granada, Nicaragua. Story time about how I fell in love with these muffins at the end of the post. I went so often that the waiter didn’t even bring me the menu. I sat down and out came my muffin and cappuccino. Having my order known without asking has always been a dream of mine, so this is a point of pride for me. Anyway, let’s make some carrot cake muffins.

The ingredients

For this carrot cake muffin recipe you will need:

Butter, unsalted is ideal and softened, not melted.
Granulated sugar
Wet ingredients: Eggs, milk, vanilla
All-purpose white flour, although wheat or half and half would also be so delicious in these muffins.
Baking powder and soda
Salt
Spices: cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger. I love the flavor of freshly grated nutmeg. It comes whole and needs to be grated on a microplane, but oh man the flavor and smell will make you want to dive head first into a pile of leaves.
Carrots, freshly grated only. No bagged carrot shortcut here.
Optional add-ins: 1/2 cup of chopped and toasted pecans or walnuts or 1/3 cup of raisins, if your into that sort of thing.

The method

For muffins, I find that creaming butter and sugar is key to getting that fluffy texture, so that’s where we start. Oh! Go ahead and preheat your oven to 375 degrees F or 190 degrees C, because this doesn’t take long. In the bowl of your stand mixer, add the softened butter and sugar and set on medium for 2 minutes. We want to whip some air into this butter and sugar. Also, the mixing helps disolve the sugar, which is important to keep the muffins from being grainy. Then add in the eggs one at a time, mixing well between each addition and stir in the milk. It’s going to look like a curdled mess, but trust. It will all work out in the end. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking powder and soda, salt and spices. Add the shredded carrots to the dry ingredients and toss so that the carrots are covered in the dry ingredients. Add the wet mixture to the dry ingredients and stir just to combine.

We want tender muffins, so while we don’t want flour clumps, we don’t want to overmix the batter and begin developing the gluten. Gluten makes baked goods more tough and chewy, which is great for pizza dough, not for cakes and muffins. This muffin batter is going to be really thick and might feel a little dry. Thats ok. As the carrots cook, they release moisture and this helps keep thing moist and soft. Too much liquid in the batter and our muffins would be too dense and gummy. Not delicious.

Divide the batter between 12 lined muffin…holes? spaces? tins? You know what I mean. Add a liner so they don’t stick and make 12 regular sized muffins. Sprinkle the tops of the unbaked muffins with granulated sugar and bake on the middle rack for 20-22 minutes. The tops will be round and just beginning to become golden. To test if they are done, you can gently apply pressure to the top of a muffin with your pointer finger and it should spring back.

Additional notes

Ok, one more note on these muffins. The reason I was such a frenquent visitor to Garden Cafe in Granada, Nicaragua was because I lived about 45 minutes away. I was working on my masters degree at the time and for one of my classes, I was required to spend a semester attending a weekly support group. Well, support groups are not super common to find in Nicaragua, but do you know which one is easy to find? Alcoholics Anonymous. Actually, AA is the largest support group globally and you can find groups almost anywhere. I found an English-language group that very kindly allowed me to attend and for a semester on Wednesdays. Every week, I went to get a carrot walnut muffin before the meeting as I gathered the courage to join a group of all men to observe and participate in AA meetings. My weekly routine was a pre-meeting muffin and coffee and post-meeting turmeric mango kombucha. I learned quite a bit that semester and I am so grateful for the kindness of that group who was willing to accept a desperate student. I also discovered my all-time favorite podcast that semester for my weekly drives, so it was really just a time of personal growth and learning lol.

So, if you are like me and also L.O.V.E. love fall and fall flavors/smells or, if you love carrot cake, make these super simple carrot cake muffins and be grateful that 12-steps in Granada, Nicaragua gave us this gift. You can store the muffins in an airtight container for up to 4 days at room-temperature, up to 7 days in the fridge or up to 2 months in the freezer. Just note that your crunchy tops will likely soften after about 24 hours of storage. If you want to bring them back, you can reheat your muffins in the oven at 300 degrees F for about 5 minutes. It will smell and taste freshly baked, crunchy tops and all.

To make these Carrot Cake Muffins, this is what you need to know…