April 8, 2020

These super soft and moist carrot cake muffins offer you the best of both worlds—decadent enough for dessert, yet healthy enough that you can eat them for breakfast if you so desire.

This recipe is sponsored by Kenwood Ireland who has kindly gifted me a brand new Kmix in order to create this lovely Easter recipe for you. I received a black one, which I love, it just looks so beautiful and blends in so well with all my other appliances. It is also available in cream, white and red to match any kitchen.

The Kmix comes with accompanying bowl tools, K-Beater, whisk and dough hook, which allows you to create flavoured bread, stylish cakes and enticing pavlovas with ease. Also, there are over 20 additional attachments available, so whether you want to make your own pasta or mince your own meat, you can get creative in the kitchen.

For this recipe, I have used the whisk and K-beater attachment.

What makes these carrot muffins healthy?

Granted, “healthy” is a subjective term, but here are a few reasons why I consider these muffins to be more nutritionally redeeming than most:

Unlike standard carrot muffins made with refined all-purpose flour, these are made with whole wheat flour. That means they’re made entirely with whole grains, but you can’t taste them because white whole wheat flour has such a mild flavour.
Protein-rich Greek yoghurt replaces sour cream.
Real maple syrup replaces refined sugar, so these muffins are naturally sweetened.
Combined, you end up with hearty muffins that taste like carrot cake. You can eat carrot cake for breakfast with these babies!

How to make Healthy Carrot Cake Muffins

Firstly, it is important to aerate the eggs by whisking as much air into them as possible. This will help them to achieve a fluffier texture. The Kenwood KMix does a great job at this, but you can also use a wire whisk if you don’t own a stand mixer.

Then you incorporate the Greek yoghurt to give it some creaminess, followed by the remaining wet ingredients. At this stage, you are still using a whisk to keep the mixture fluffy.

Now you will gently fold in the dry ingredients, I used the K-beater attachment for this on a low to medium speed, but you could also use a spatula. You want to do this carefully so that you won’t lose too much of the fluffiness. You just fold it enough until it is just combined.

Then you either pour or scoop the batter into 12 greased or paper-lined muffin tins. I like using an ice-cream scoop for even measurements.

Bake the muffins for 20-25 minutes until risen and set or until an inserted wooden skewer comes out clean. Let them cool off before you apply the frosting.

For the frosting, you simply combine the cream cheese, maple syrup and vanilla essence. Adjust the sweetness to your liking.

Add a dollop of icing onto each muffin and either tap it on the counter to distribute it evenly or spread it with the back of a spoon.

If you wish you can decorate it with little chocolate Easter eggs.

Thanks to the nuts and whole grains, these muffins make a good grab-and-go breakfast! They also freeze and defrost well. I just microwave individual muffins for 30 to 60 seconds, until they’re gently warmed throughout.

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