Carrot Cream Cheese Muffins

lil carrots

Carrot Cream Cheese Muffins

These are my carrot cake cream cheese muffins, and they are so good. Super moist, lightly spiced, and stuffed with a creamy center. It is basically like a carrot cupcake with cream cheese frosting, but in muffin form. I was inspired by my pumpkin cream cheese muffins, and these turned out just as special. They stayed soft and fresh all week and made the best little breakfast treat.

Recipe

Ingredients

Muffin Batter:

• 1½ cups brown sugar

• 1 stick (½ cup) butter, softened

• ½ cup canola oil

• 4 eggs

• ¾ cup unsweetened applesauce

• 1 tsp vanilla extract

• 2½ cups all-purpose flour

• 2 tsp baking powder

• 1 tsp baking soda

• ½ tsp salt

• 1½ tsp ground cinnamon

• 1 tsp ground ginger

• ¼ tsp nutmeg

• ¼ tsp ground cloves

• 2 cups shredded carrots (about 4 medium carrots)

Cream Cheese Filling:

• 8 oz cream cheese, room temperature

• ¼ cup granulated sugar

• 2 tsp flour

• 2 tsp milk

• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350°F and line your muffin pan with baking cups.

2. In a large bowl, cream together the brown sugar and softened butter until light and fluffy.

3. Mix in the eggs, one at a time, followed by the vanilla extract.

4. In a separate bowl, stir together the canola oil and applesauce.

5. In another bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients: flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and cloves.

6. Alternate adding the dry ingredients and wet mixture to the creamed mixture until just combined.

7. Fold in the shredded carrots.

8. For the cream cheese filling, mix all the filling ingredients in a medium bowl until smooth.

9. Transfer the filling to a piping bag (or zip-top bag with a corner snipped off).

10. Scoop your muffin batter into the lined muffin pan.

11. Insert the piping bag into the center of each muffin and pipe some cream cheese filling inside then add a bit more on top. You’ll see the muffin rise slightly as it fills.

12. Bake for 20–25 minutes, or until the tops are golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the muffin part comes out clean.

    

Optional Decoration

To make little carrots on top, I mixed up a small batch of cream cheese frosting and used orange food coloring to pipe the carrot shape. I added little rosemary sprigs to look like the carrot tops. Totally optional but so cute!

Storage

These stayed fresh in the fridge for 3–4 days. Hope you enjoy them as much as I did!