Chocolate Carrot Muffins
About a month ago the amount of fresh, bright, sweet baby carrots I had in my crisper had become overwhelming.
I know, I know, poor me: a fridge full of heirloom nante carrots is a real problem! Please, don’t misunderstand me, I am not complaining about the gorgeous produce I have laying around in bulk, I just was trying to figure out to use it all before they go bad. Oh, I would also like to figure out how to shovel as many of these veggies as possible into my little kiddies.
As in any case, sneaking veggies into anything chocolate can be tricky and rewarding at the same time. Around this house, incognito seems to work best! But after all the fun I have had hiding things like beets and zucchinii in chocolate- carrots, with their incredible natural sweetness, seemed like an easy feat.
This time I went for a chocolate carrot muffin. I will be honest- they are good. Very good. In fairness this tastes a little more like a cupcake than a muffin- but I still ate them for breakfast! And more importantly- my kids LOVED them. Not that they got to really enjoy them, because my parents snuck into our house and took the whole batch home…
Chocolate Carrot Muffins makes 18 muffins
(Pictures show a double batch, but I halved the recipe to be reasonable about it ☺)
1 Tbs butter, melted
1 cup carrots, peeled and sliced into ½ “ pieces
1/8 cup water
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs
3/4 cup flour
3/4 cup dark cocoa powder (I used Hershey’s DARK)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
¼ tsp ginger
1 12 oz bag semi sweet chocolate chips
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Prepare a muffin tin with liners.
Combine the butter, carrots and water in a small roasting pan and cook about 15 minutes or until the carrots are soft.
(raw carrots)
(cooked carrots)
Throw the carrots and liquid in the blender or food processor and puree until smooth. You made need an additional Tbs or 2 of water- go ahead.
Set the puree aside.
Combine the butter and sugar in the bowl of a standing mixer. Cream them together until fluffy.
Add the eggs and beat until fluffy.
In a separate bowl, combine the dry ingredients.
Add the chocolate chips to the dry ingredients. Set aside.
Add the carrot puree and beat until you have a smooth batter.
Add the dry ingredients to the mixer and beat until worked in.
Scoop the batter into the muffin tin.
Bake about 15-20 minutes or until the cupcakes are cooked through.
If you open and shut the oven door to peek, they may sink in the center, so resist!!
Let them cool on a rack and Enjoy!
This sounds so decadent! I’ve been looking for a new muffin recipe to try, this might be it!
Really great idea. love this!
Mmmm…these sounds and look delicious. I LOVE the deep chocolate hue 🙂
Is it three quarters of a cup of flour or three to four cups of flour? Looks more like 3 to 4. So which is it and what’s the difference?
Unambiguous recipes are my favourite.
hey Chris! it is 3/4 of 1 cup of flour.
They sound delicious! Simply delicious!
I just made a batch of these and they are the tastiest chocolate muffins/cupcakes I have ever had. Thanks!
These are delicious and very chocolatey. However they came out crumbly. Only a few stuck together. I will not be using this recipe again.
I tried this recipe twice. First batch would not solidify, had to throw them all out! Second try I had to bake them almost twice as long and they were still somewhat soggy. They tasted great, but if these don’t work out after following the recipe to a T twice, then I am done trying. I’m very disappointed with this recipe.
Sadly, I had a bad experience too. They frothed up, overflowed, and never set. More like molten cakes than cupcakes. Maybe it has something to do with the amount of carrots? Maybe post a measurement for the final, blended carrots rather than the raw ones?
Full disclosure: I reduced the baking powder to 2 tsp because I figured 2 Tbs had to be a typo or overkill.
Actually, after managing to free one from the pan after they cooled, they are more like extremely gooey brownies. I bet that if I put the batter in a brownie pan and skipped the muffin tin they would turn out amazingly well.
I’m having to go the brownie pan route–my first try made such a crumbly mess there was no way to even eat it, let alone serve it to friends (now, if I’d had ice cream to crumble the mess over, that would have been a different story–delicious mess, but not a muffin). Trying now a brownie pan full of the batter I had left mixed in with the crumble to see if I can make anything solid to share at playgroup this afternoon.
This recipe is awesome! My daughter who won’t eat many veggies, tasted these chocolate, carrot cupcakes and told me they were moist and delicious. That these cupcakes were better than any other desserts I have ever made, they weren’t as dry.
How much is the final blended carrots? Mine didn’t came out so well, I probably put too much carrots.