Baking Bouchon - Recipe 73: Carrot Muffins

I was highly skeptical of this recipe.  I haven't had much luck with carroty baked goods in the past and this recipe looked very much like the carrot cake recipes I had so much trouble with when I was trying to find the perfect carrot cake.  The solution back then was to cook and puree the carrots but TK doesn't believe in that (not that I asked him) so I whipped up these muffins and made a wish as they baked that they wouldn't be oily and lumpy and ugly.

The recipe was pretty straight forward.  Dry ingredients get mixed together (your typical flour, soda, powder, salt along with a little bit of cinnamon).  Oil and sugar get whipped together.  Add some eggs.  Add shredded carrots and vanilla bean.  Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients.  Done.

I've previously stated my belief that all muffins should have streusel on them.  I stand by that statement.  These have a different struesel than the other muffins in the cookbook.  It contains butter, oats, flour, wheat germ and some spices.  I got a little distracted when I was making the struesel and didn't realize that the recipe in the book made way more than I actually needed.  Plus I didn't have enough oats (for the full batch, not the batch I should have made) so I put in more wheat germ.  Then I decided it was too loose and added more butter.  In the end is was OK, but I wish it had more oats.  If only I'd read it more closely it would have been fine because I had enough oats for what I needed to make just not for what I actually made.  Of course now, I have a ton of extra struesel to deal with.  Good thing I think struesel is necessary for delicious muffins or I'd be grumpy.

Both the muffin batter and the struesel rest in the refrigerator overnight before being scooped and baked.

My initial impression of the baked muffins was promising.  They were not hideous  However, I thought the lovely layer of struesel could be disguising an ugly secret beneath.

There was only one way to tell.


I was very pleasantly surprised by these.  They were actually pretty on the inside!  The muffins was light and fluffy and full of carrot flavor.  Hooray!  The streusel wasn't perfect - most of it off fell the muffin but that's easily corrected if I actually follow the recipe.

I may use this muffin recipe as my go to carrot cake recipe in the future.  I've never been convinced there's much difference between muffins and cake except for the addition of frosting.  Slap some cream cheese frosting on these little guys and you've got yourself a cupcake.

Enjoy!
Julie