On occasion, I whine complain moan mention that I just can’t get my children to eat vegetables (although that is changing soon, even if it kills me). I was hiding veggies in food even before “Deceptively Delicious” came out!

So I was thrilled when I saw my children practically inhaling some carrot muffins/cupcakes at a recent church event (they didn’t know that the “orange stuff” were carrots until after I told them) and went searching for a recipe to recreate the muffins at home. I found a bunch of recipes, but tweaked them to make it a bit healthier. Here is the recipe I ended up making:

Carrot Muffins (makes about 18 muffins)

Ingredients:

2 cups all-purpose flour

3 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp allspice (optional)

4 eggs

3/4 cup applesauce

1/4 cup vegetable or canola oil

3/4 cup brown sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

3 cups shredded carrots (I just shredded a 1lb bag of baby carrots…it was a little over 3 cups and I used it all)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350. Line muffin pan with paper liners

2. combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt & cinnamon

3. in a separate bowl, mix together eggs, applesauce, oil, vanilla, brown sugar until well-blended. Add flour mixture and mix until combined. Do not overmix!

4. Fold in carrots

5. Spoon in to prepared muffin cups and bake for about 20 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.

Variation:

My children won’t eat raisins, but if you like them, simply soak 1 cup golden raisins in 2 cups very warm water for about 20 minutes. Drain the raisins and fold them in with the carrots. (regular raisins would work as well, but I prefer golden raisins)

you can substitute whole wheat flour, but I wouldn’t substitute more than 1 cup (so it would be 1 cup white flour, 1 cup whole wheat)

Enjoy! Let me know if you make them and how you like them!