Healthy Carrot Muffins

Carrot muffins! No, it's not carrot cake....sorry! I was thinking about making carrot cake or cupcakes, but I decided against dessert, and instead, I made a breakfast (or snack!) item. Without the typical cream cheese frosting that accompanies a carrot cake, these carrot muffins are not really dessert-ish, but I suppose you could have them for dessert if you wanted to...they do have a bit of a sweetness to them! :)

I had a LOT of carrots on hand, which was essentially my main inspiration behind trying this recipe...I wanted to use some of them! I followed this Cooking Light recipe for Carrot Bread, so rest assured that it is a yummy, healthy, low-calorie option. I love those types of recipes!!

Overall, this was an incredibly easy recipe. It did not require an electric mixer, which made it very simple. The most time consuming part (which really wasn't all that bad!) was preparing the carrots. The recipe calls for boiling the carrots for about 15 minutes on the stove to make them tender, then processing them in a food processor or blender to puree them. Other than that, this was pretty much a no-fuss recipe! I like that it uses only whole wheat flour too...makes it even better. After making these, I thought that it would have been a good idea to make them even healthier by adding flaxseed...but alas, I did not think of that ahead of time! Maybe I'll do that the next time I make this recipe.

Here are a couple pictures of the carrot preparation... And then you have the carrots mashed up and mixed with sugar before adding the remaining liquids. And finally, a picture of the batter all ready to go!

As you can see here, I actually used some Valentine's paper baking cups that I had... It's about a week after Valentine's Day, but I thought it'd be fun to use them still!

I ended up baking the muffins for roughly 16 or 17 minutes at 350 degrees. The actual recipe that is provided in the link above is for bread, so I obviously had to shorten the baking time for muffins! It made exactly 12 muffins too. So, judging by the nutrition information listed for the bread online, since the bread makes 12 servings, one muffin is approximately 151 calories. Not bad at all! I might suggest adding just a few calories though by putting a teeny bit of margarine on your muffin. Delicious! And they are best served warm, I think. I am already looking forward to having a delicious, healthful muffin tomorrow morning with a cup of coffee. Great way to start the day, I'd say. :)