Vegan Carrot Cake Muffins

by Lacey Dumler

Vegan Carrot Cake Muffins: Breakfast (or snack) of champions

In Kitchen Confidential, one of Anthony Bourdain’s buddies says that, “Muffins are for people who don’t have the nads to order cake for breakfast.”  And while this is an undoubtedly hilarious remark (at least I think so), not all muffins are created equal.  

As many of you may know by now, commercially produced baked goods are often packed with trans fats, and if not trans fats, then just loads of sugar and fat.  It’s safe to say that companies that mass produce muffins aren’t usually doing so with your health in mind.  They want to make a product that will ship well and stay alive on the shelf for as long as possible.  Good for business, not necessarily good for us.  

Did you know that the average Dunkin Donut muffin is between 500 and 600 calories and has around 20 grams of fat?  A Costco blueberry muffin has 610 calories and 32 grams of fat. What the what? I don’t advocate calorie counting, and I firmly believe that all foods can fit into a health-supporting diet.  That said, I personally want some nutritional bang for my caloric buck.  Feel me?   That’s why we’re using whole wheat flour, oats, pumpkin seeds, chia or flax seeds, raisins, carrots… There are so many good things in here!

These Carrot Cake Muffins will get moldy and die if you ship them across the country and then leave them on a shelf for two weeks.  I suspect, however, that that won’t be a problem.  If you can’t get through all twelve by yourself in three days, give some to friends.  Who doesn’t love a home made muffin?  Serve them along side a big o’ bowl of fruit salad for a great breakfast.

Vegan Carrot Cake Muffins

Makes 12 hockey puck sized muffins.  Active time:  10 minutes  Baking time:  17-20 minutes

As usual, “T” = tablespoon while “t”= teaspoon

INGREDIENTS

  • 3 T ground flax seeds or ground chia seeds
  • 2/3 cup water
  • 1/2 cup raisins
  • 1/2 cup brown sugar
  • 1/2 cup sunflower oil or canola oil
  • 1 cup whole wheat flour
  • 1 cup rolled oats
  • 1 T baking powder
  • 1 t baking soda
  • 1 t cinnamon
  • 1 t powdered ginger
  • 1/8 t nutmeg
  • 1/8 t salt
  • 1/2 cup pumpkin seeds
  • 1 cup grated carrot
  1.  Combine the flax or chia, water, and raisins in a small bowl and set aside.  You really want to do this first (you know you want to) so that the flax has time to glop up and become your egg replacer.  It also rehydrates the raisins a tad so they don’t burn up during the baking.
  2. Whisk together dry ingredients in a large bowl, preheat the oven to 350 and lightly oil a muffin tin.
  3. Mix the oil and sugar into the flax mixture.
  4. Pour the liquids into the dry ingredients and mix just to combine.  Then fold in the carrots and pumpkin seeds.
  5. Spoon into ze muffin tin and bake for until done;  17-20 minutes.

1 comment

  • Luckily my bare pantry seems to resemble yours, the roomies will be delighted to wake up to freshly baked muffins, even if we are now out of rasins.
    Also, they are very cute, which is an important quality in a food that is, by nature, miniature.

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