Food, Folks, and Fun: Whole Wheat Carrot Muffins

Need something to counter-balance your holiday indulgences? These healthy muffins are perfect to kick start your day and get back on track to eating right. These are very delicious and taste healthy. Be warned: if you’re used to the grocery store muffins that are more like cake, these muffins are not like those. These muffins are best when served warm, but keep for up to 3 days in an air-tight container.

Whole Wheat Carrot Muffins

Ingredients:

1 1/2 C whole wheat flour
1 C oats
1/4 C packed brown sugar
1 T baking powder
1/2 t cinnamon
1/4 t salt
1 C milk
1 egg
1/4 C honey
1/4 C vegetable oil
1 t vanilla
1 carrot, grated
1/2 C chopped walnuts

1/2 C craisins

Oats for sprinkling

Directions

First of all, start off by preheating your oven to 375 degrees. Also, using butter grease a muffin tin, or line the tin with paper liners.

Next, prepare the carrot by chopping it into 1 - 2 inch pieces and pulsing in the food processor. It's so much easier than sitting there grating the carrot.

Then, reconstitute your craisins by boiling them in a cup of water for about 10 minutes. This will help them become plump and juicy. Drain and rinse the craisins, then put them aside. (If you don’t rinse the craisins your batter will turn pink.)

Reconstituted Craisins

Next, combine dry ingredients in one bowl and the wet ingredients in a separate bowl. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and lightly mix. Once just combined mix in the carrots, craisins, and walnuts.

Once everything is combined, using a regular sized ice cream scoop, scoop the batter into your buttered muffin tin and sprinkle with some oats.

Bake in the oven for about 20 minutes, or until when tested with a toothpick the toothpick comes out clean.

Remove from the tin and cool for about 5 minutes before diving in!

Yields 12 regular muffins, or 6 jumbo muffins (you’ll need to adjust the cooking time to 26-28 minutes for jumbo muffins).