carrot | thebrookcook

I love a good, hearty muffin for a special breakfast. Especially if it’s warm from the oven. 🙂 These muffins were moist, earthy, and wholesome. The recipe made 24 muffins- so I was able to freeze a dozen of them for a busy day. Woo hoo! Nice. 🙂

This recipe was adapted from the The New York Times, contributed by Julia Moskin. I weighed the dry ingredients, omitted the nuts, baked the muffins in one large oven in a single batch, and modified the baking time for a convection oven.

Yield: 24 standard muffins

For the Muffins:

2 cups/240 g all-purpose flour, more as needed
⅔ cup/75 g whole wheat flour or wheat germ, preferably toasted
⅔ cup/92 g fine-ground yellow cornmeal
⅔ cup/66 g rolled oats (not quick-cooking)
⅔ cup/142 g packed light brown sugar
4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
4 tsp cinnamon (or 2 tsp cinnamon & 2 tsp nutmeg or allspice)
½ tsp coarse salt
1 ¾ cups/414 ml buttermilk, more as needed
1 ⅓ cup/315 ml coconut oil, or neutral oil like safflower or canola
⅔ cup/158 ml maple syrup
4 large eggs
2 cups/198 g grated carrots or tart apple (I grated the carrots in a food processor.)
1 ½ cups/255 g blueberries (I used frozen wild blueberries.)
1 cup/113 g chopped toasted walnuts or pecans (optional)

For the Streusel:

⅓ cup/71 grams packed light brown sugar
½ tsp cinnamon
¼ cup/59 ml coconut oil or cold unsalted butter
½ cup/60 g all-purpose flour
finely grated zest from 1 large orange (about 1 1/2 T)

Make the muffins: In a large bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients: flours, cornmeal, oats, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt.
In a separate bowl or large measuring cup, mix the wet ingredients: buttermilk, oil, maple syrup and eggs.
Pour the wet ingredients over the dry ingredients and gently mix just until blended. Don’t worry about a few lumps or streaks of flour.
Stir in the carrots, blueberries and nuts if using. (If you’d like, reserve a handful of blueberries for sprinkling on top of the muffins just before baking.)
Set batter aside at room temperature for 15 to 30 minutes to allow flours to absorb the liquid. Check batter after 15 minutes by giving it a light stir. It should be thick, not runny (this will help the muffins rise). Thin with a little more buttermilk or thicken by adding 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour. Set aside for 5 minutes more, check and adjust texture again, and repeat until batter is thick and fluffy.
Heat oven to 425 degrees, preferably on convection, and place rack in top third of oven.
Butter or spray two muffin tins (regular or jumbo), or line the cups with paper liners. Make sure to also butter or spray the top surface of the tin to help the muffins release.
Make the streusel if using: In a small bowl, mix and pinch all the ingredients together until blended and crumbly. (If using butter, cut into small pieces first.)
Using an ice-cream scoop or small ladle, divide thick batter among muffin cups, filling almost to the top. Mound the batter slightly in the center of each cup; this will help make a domed muffin top. If you reserved blueberries for topping, press them lightly into the muffins. Top with streusel, using your fingers to divide streusel over batter and press lightly onto the surface.
Place one muffin tin in oven (or both tins if using a large oven) and reduce heat to 400 degrees. Bake for 17 minutes on convection, or up to 20 minutes in a standard oven, until a tester inserted into center of muffin comes out moist but clean. Rotate the pan halfway through baking.
Cool muffins in pan on rack, then remove from tin.
If baking one batch at a time, repeat with remaining batter. (If there is not enough batter remaining to fill all the cups, fill every other cup with batter. Pour water into the empty cups to protect the pan in the oven.)

Note: To freeze extra muffins, wrap them individually in aluminum foil. Reheat, still wrapped, in a 300-degree oven for about 20 minutes. Or unwrap and reheat in a microwave.