Carrot cake muffins have the flavors of carrot cake but in a much healthier form. They’re moist and lightly sweet from grated carrots, crushed pineapple, and applesauce.
I love carrot cake. My mom makes the absolute best carrot cake in the world! Hands down. No question. 🙂
Mom’s carrot cake is incredibly rich, and sweet, and it’s covered in cream cheese frosting. It’s got amazing flavor from spices, carrots, and fruit. The last time I had her carrot cake I thought to myself, this has such great flavor I would like it even if it weren’t so sweet and decadent. So, these carrot cake muffins were born.
These muffins have less added sugar than most muffin recipes. But, they still have light sweetness from grated carrots, crushed pineapple, and applesauce. The fruit also helps make these muffins incredibly moist.
Just look at ’em! I love the chunks of pineapple and flecks of bright orange carrot.
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Carrot Cake Muffins Recipe
Video
Ingredients
- 2-3 medium carrots
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 2 tsp. ground cinnamon
- 1 tsp. baking powder
- 1/2 tsp. baking soda
- 1/8 tsp. salt
- 1 (8 oz.) can crushed pineapple in pineapple juice
- 1/2 cup light brown sugar packed
- 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
- 1/4 cup unsalted butter melted
- 1 large egg beaten
- 1 tsp. vanilla extract
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a standard 12-cup muffin tin with muffin liners. Spray liners with cooking spray.
- Using the small grate on a box grater, grate the carrots to make 1 cup of finely grated fresh carrots. Note: I do not advise using packaged pre-shredded carrots.
- In a large bowl, add the flour, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Whisk to combine.
- In a medium bowl, add the pineapple, brown sugar, applesauce, butter, egg, and vanilla. Whisk to combine.
- Add the wet ingredients and the grated carrots to the dry ingredients. Mix just until no large clumps of flour remain. Do not over mix.
- Pour the batter into the muffin liners.
- Bake for 21-23 minutes. Cool 5 minutes before serving.
Nutrition
Can I use honey instead of sugar?
Best muffins I have ever made! Super moist and yummy!
Very disappointed in these. I followed the recipe exactly as indicated. The batter was so overly moist that I baked them an extra six minutes. I believe some of the pineapple juice should be eliminated or more flour added. As to the amount of carrots, a more exact measurement of shredded carrots would be helpful since carrots vary greatly in size.
Can I use canola oil in place of the butter?
Amanda, your recipe is absolutely delectable and healthy and very moist. Restrained myself and ate only one! lol This recipe is a keeper. Thank you so much for sharing your recipes
So good. I may add some nuts raisins and flax meal. I am definitely making these again!
Just made these and they are delicious! I was able to cut the calories to approximately 104!
I used 1/4 cup brown sugar and 1/4 cup stevia. Also cut the butter to 3 tablespoons not 4. Next time I will use just 2 tablespoons. This is a great recipe. Now I have my breakfast in the freezer for the next 12 days. Tks
Hi, it’s unclear from the recipe – do you drain the crushed pineapple or add the juice to the mix? Lara
So the pineapple is not drained? Just want to make sure before I try making them, they look wonderful!
Is the pineapple drained?
no it is not drained 🙂
Very moist muffins. After my small test muffin came out it hardly held together and didn’t rise much. ( I did drain the pineapple juice off).
So I added 1/2 cup flour and 1/2 teas of baking powder. Then they were great. Also I added 1 cup of raisins and some chopped walnuts.
I appreciated the lower sugar content.
Correct. The pineapple is not drained. 😛
I love the carrot cake muffin idea…more portion control lo! 🙂
Just what I need, PORTABLE CARROT CAKE.
These holidays are gonna be the death of me!
LOL Wan! That’s hilarious 🙂 But there are plenty of healthy swaps in these muffins. They’re way healthier than carrot cake. Although, portable carrot cake sounds pretty awesome!
Thanks Karielyn! I agree about the portion control….except I typically had several at one time 🙂