These Carrot Muffins taste just like a soft and fluffy carrot cake, but are still healthy enough to eat for breakfast.
Studded with plenty of shredded carrot, chopped pecans and raisins, these are delicious and full of warm spice flavor.
Carrot Cake Muffin recipe
One can never have too many muffin recipes, and this blog is testament to it! I have shared so many muffin recipes – from my favorite blueberry muffins to my strawberry oatmeal muffins…
I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to add a carrot muffin recipe to the collection. I first shared this as a very healthy recipe in 2018, but turns out not so many of you were interested in that (FYI, print the old recipe here, in case you’ve successfully made it before and are looking for it). So I re-worked it to turn it into a regular carrot muffin that is sweet, soft, nutritious and made with completely normal ingredients ?
Ingredients you’ll need
Here is a visual overview of the ingredients in the recipe. Scroll down to the printable recipe card at the bottom of this post for quantities!
Ingredient notes
- Flour: You can replace half of the flour with whole wheat, or all of it with white whole wheat. I do not recommend using all regular whole wheat, because with the large volume of shredded carrots in the recipe, the muffins easily get too dense.
- Spices: If you don’t have all of the individual spices, only using cinnamon is also fine. If you have it, you can use pumpkin spice mix in place of the ginger and/or nutmeg.
- Carrots: Please do not use the bagged, shredded carrots. Grate fresh. The pre-shredded carrots do not have the right texture for this recipe, and they will stay stringy instead of soften during baking.
- Oil: Feel free to use melted butter in place of the vegetable oil if you want a more decadent muffin.
- Sugar: Add an extra ¼ cup of sugar for a sweeter muffin, or remove ¼ cup of sugar for a just lightly sweetened muffin. Feel free to use half light brown sugar and half granulated sugar if you want a more caramelized flavor.
- Pecans/raisins: Either can be left out, if you prefer. You will have a little less sturdy/less tall muffin, but they will still be perfectly soft and delicious.
How to make Carrot Muffins
This is a walk-through of the recipe with step photos. Skip to the printable recipe card at the bottom for exact times and temperatures.
1. Start by whisking together the dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl.
Then, whisk together the wet ingredients in a separate large measuring jug until smooth.
2. Stir the carrots, pecans and raisins into the wet ingredients (do not use a whisk here, all of the mix-ins will just get stuck – use a rubber spatula or wooden spoon).
3. Add the wet ingredients to the bowl with the dry ingredients and fold together just until combined.
Make sure to scrape the bottom of the bowl to catch all of the flour. Lumps are fine, but do not overmix your batter.
4. Divide the batter between 12 lined muffin cups. I use a large cookie scoop/ice cream scoop to transfer the batter, it’s so easy and mess free. Also helps with getting about equal amounts of batter into the cups!
Then just bake your muffins until done!
Note: How to bake muffins
If you want to create that nice, rounded dome on your muffin, you need to do two things: Fill the muffin cups almost entirely (none of that half full business!), and bake the muffins correctly.
Here is how I bake muffins for that perfect dome:
- Pre-heat the oven to 425°F
- Reduce the oven temperature to 400°F just before putting the muffins in the oven
- Bake the muffins at 400°F for 5 minutes
- Reduce the oven temperature to 360°F WITHOUT opening the oven door!
- Finish baking the muffins for around 15 minutes at 360°F, until a toothpick inserted comes out without liquid batter stuck to it (baked crumbs are fine)
Recipe tips
- Measure your flour correctly: Spoon it into the cup, then level off with the back of a knife. Do not scoop the flour with the cup, this yields too much flour and your muffins will be dry and dense.
- Make sure you do not overmix the muffin batter, or your muffins will come out dense and gummy. This is especially important here because we are working with a lot of shredded carrot. Use a rubber spatula or a wooden spoon, never a whisk to combine the wet and dry ingredients for muffins. Make sure to scrape the bottom of the bowl to catch all of the flour, so you do not end up mixing too much.
- This really does bake just 12 muffins, even if the muffin cups seem very full. This is needed to get those big, nice, domed bakery-style muffins.
- Use a cookie/ice cream scoop to neatly transfer the muffin batter into the lined muffin cups. It’s the absolute easiest method for this!
- Do not overbake the muffins, or they’ll be dry. If you’re using the toothpick method to text for doneness, cake crumbs stuck to the toothpick are fine! It’s just liquid batter you want to avoid seeing on the toothpick.
- Make sure to allow the muffins to cool in the pan for 5-10 minutes before removing them to a cooling rack to cool completely. They are too soft and need to cool and firm up a little right out of the oven.
Storage tips
Short term: Once the muffins are cooled, wrap them up in plastic wrap or place them in a storage container (do not store fully air tight, or they may develop mould pretty quickly).
Store the wrapped up muffins on the counter for up to 2 days, or in the fridge for 3-4 days.
Freezer: Wrap the cooled muffins individually in plastic wrap, then place in freezer bags or containers. Label with the name and use-by date (freeze for up to 3 months), then place in the freezer.
To defrost, remove as many muffins as you need from the bag. Allow to defrost on the counter for 15 minutes or until you can easily remove the plastic wrap. Unwrap and place the muffins on a wire rack on the counter to defrost for several hours, until no longer frozen.
PS If you try this recipe, please leave a review in the comment section and add a star rating in the recipe card – I appreciate your feedback! Follow along on Pinterest, Facebook or Instagram.
Printable recipe
Carrot Muffins
Recipe details
Ingredients
Dry Ingredients
- 2 cups all-purpose flour spooned and levelled!
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon ground ginger
- ⅛ teaspoon ground nutmeg
- ½ teaspoon salt
Wet Ingredients
- 3 large eggs
- ⅔ cup sugar
- ¾ cup vegetable oil
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Mix-ins
- 2 ½ cups freshly grated carrot
- ½ cup raisins
- ¼ cup chopped pecans
Instructions
- Heat oven to 425°F (420°C) and line a 12 cup muffin pan with liners.
- Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl.
- Whisk together wet ingredients in a large measuring jug until smooth.
- Stir mix-ins into wet ingredients.
- Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and fold together JUST until combined. Lumps are fine, do not overmix.
- Evenly divide batter between muffin cups (I use a cookie scoop/ice cream scoop for convenience).
- Reduce oven temperature to 400°F (200°C) and bake muffins for 5 minutes. Without opening oven door, reduce heat to 360°F (180°C) and finish baking muffins for 15 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into middle comes out clean.
- Cool muffins in pan for 5-10 minutes, then remove to a cooling rack to cool completely.
Notes
Ingredient notes
- Flour: You can replace half of the flour with whole wheat, or all of it with white whole wheat. I do not recommend using all regular whole wheat, because with the large volume of shredded carrots in the recipe, the muffins easily get too dense.
- Spices: If you don’t have all of the individual spices, only using cinnamon is also fine. If you have it, you can use pumpkin spice mix in place of the ginger and/or nutmeg.
- Carrots: Please do not use the bagged, shredded carrots. Grate fresh. The pre-shredded carrots do not have the right texture for this recipe, and they will stay stringy instead of soften during baking.
- Oil: Feel free to use melted butter in place of the vegetable oil if you want a more decadent muffin.
- Sugar: Add an extra ¼ cup of sugar for a sweeter muffin, or remove ¼ cup of sugar for a just lightly sweetened muffin. Feel free to use half light brown sugar and half granulated sugar if you want a more caramelized flavor.
- Pecans/raisins: Either can be left out, if you prefer. You will have a little less sturdy/less tall muffin, but they will still be perfectly soft and delicious.
Recipe tips
- Measure your flour correctly: Spoon it into the cup, then level off with the back of a knife. Do not scoop the flour with the cup, this yields too much flour and your muffins will be dry and dense.
- Make sure you do not overmix the muffin batter, or your muffins will come out dense and gummy. This is especially important here because we are working with a lot of shredded carrot. Use a rubber spatula or a wooden spoon, never a whisk to combine the wet and dry ingredients for muffins. Make sure to scrape the bottom of the bowl to catch all of the flour, so you do not end up mixing too much.
- This really does bake just 12 muffins, even if the muffin cups seem very full. This is needed to get those big, nice, domed bakery-style muffins.
- Do not overbake the muffins, or they’ll be dry. If you’re using the toothpick method to text for doneness, cake crumbs stuck to the toothpick are fine! It’s just liquid batter you want to avoid seeing on the toothpick.
Storage tips
Short term: Once the muffins are cooled, wrap them up in plastic wrap or place them in a storage container (do not store fully air tight, or they may develop mould pretty quickly). Store the wrapped up muffins on the counter for up to 2 days, or in the fridge for 3-4 days. Freezer: Wrap the cooled muffins individually in plastic wrap, then place in freezer bags or containers. Label with the name and use-by date (freeze for up to 3 months), then place in the freezer. To defrost, remove as many muffins as you need from the bag. Allow to defrost on the counter for 15 minutes or until you can easily remove the plastic wrap. Unwrap and place the muffins on a wire rack on the counter to defrost for several hours, until no longer frozen.Nutrition
More recipe information
First published on 03/26/2018. Updated with a new recipe, new photos and new text on 03/30/2021. Print the old recipe here.
Nicky says
These muffins came out perfectly! I had to read the instructions several times to make sure I got all of the details, but it was worth it! I will definitely make these again.
D, says
Too dry , should add pineapple or applesauce to reduce dryness. The shredded carrots should be chopped a bit.
Nora says
There are quite a few tips and notes in the recipe that sound like they may have led to a different outcome for you:
“Measure your flour correctly: Spoon it into the cup, then level off with the back of a knife. Do not scoop the flour with the cup, this yields too much flour and your muffins will be dry and dense.”
“Do not overbake the muffins, or they’ll be dry. ”
“Please do not use the bagged, shredded carrots. Grate fresh. The pre-shredded carrots do not have the right texture for this recipe, and they will stay stringy instead of soften during baking.”
Bagged carrots will also release less moisture and yield drier muffins, so I’m wondering if this was the issue here?
Marie Propp says
I liked these but did find them a little bland. I would double the nutmeg and cinnamon and maybe use apple sauce for at least half of the oil called for.
Nora says
Marie, appreciate your honest review! I think spices can be a little tricky in baking – it always depends on the exact brand, how recently they’ve been opened and how much flavor is right for your personal taste. I have three young children so I tend to go more moderate on spices, but you can obviously always up the ante to better suit your taste!
Joanna says
Is there a modification to make them chocolate carrot?
Nora says
If you want to hide veggies in a chocolate muffin, I would always go for zucchini over carrot. If you genuinely want to make chocolatey carrot muffins, I honestly don’t think this would be a good flavor profile. Maybe with a white chocolate frosting, or white chocolate chips. Hope this helps, Joanna!
Esther says
Should I soak the raisins in hot water before adding to the wet ingreds.?
Nora says
I never do, Esther! If your raisins are extremely hard and very very dry (mine were softer), you may consider it. Otherwise, no need!
Lauren says
Tried them for the first time and modified slightly with my own ground flour. Put 1 and 1/2 cups Alberta red wheat flour instead of 2 cups all purpose. Loved them and will bake again. Thanks!
Nora says
I’m so glad, Lauren!
Precious says
My kids and I absolutely love these muffins. The recipe is so easy to follow also easy to memorize which is an added bonus. This is definitely going to be one of my go to recipes. Thank you for sharing it.
Nora says
I’m so glad, Precious! My kids love them as well, so I’m happy to hear this.
Susan says
I love the convenience of muffins. We love to bake and freeze them to reheat in the toaster oven later. I really love all the flavor in this recipe. I must have done something wrong. When I took these out after testing for done they were still way to wet in the middle. I grind my own wheat flour. I chose to use a soft white wheat. What wheat flour are you using in your recipe? Does it say in the flour ingredients whether it’s soft or hard wheat? Thanks so much for the great recipes.
Nora says
Hi Susan! I’m sorry the muffins didn’t work out for you. I grind my own flour as well, but I didn’t use it for these muffins (because most people don’t grind their own!). I do think this could be the issue, I find in certain recipes freshly ground flour bakes very differently than store-bought. I’ve been thinking about adding more recipes using freshly ground flour to the blog, I might start with these muffins!
Susan says
Could you tell me the brand and name of the flour you used. Thanks a bunch.