One Ingredient Challenge - Carrots

I was recently introduced to the excellent blog Working London Mummy. It's packed with lots of lovely foodie posts including some great children-friendly recipes. This month she has opened up her 'One Ingredient' challenge to the blogisphere, inviting us to come up with a recipe focusing on the chosen ingredient...


This month's 'One Ingredient' is.... Carrots

Me and the Little Man are big fans of carrots, raw and cooked, grated in sandwiches, dipped in hummus, as a base for soups and casseroles and as side with everything from fish pie to Sunday roast. Little Man has even requested that we grow some in the garden next year (although I do hope he is not expecting them  to sing to him like the ones n Mr Bloom's Nursery...)
But one of the best things you can do with carrots is use them to make cake!

Even better - we used them to make muffins! With less sugar and fat than traditional Carrot Cake you can almost pass them off as  'health food' ;-)

Muffins are dead simple to make and really take no time at all to prepare and homemade ones are a million times better than shop bought!

Scrummy Spicey Carrot Muffins 
(makes 10-12 large muffins)

Pre-heat the oven to 190c/gas5 and prepare your muffin tin

Mix the following 'dry' ingredients together in a large bowl:
10oz/280g plain flour
1tsp baking powder
1tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp salt
2tsp ground cinnamon

Mix the following 'wet' ingredients together in another large bowl:
12oz/340g finely grated carrots (I process mine in the 'chopper' attachment of my Braun stick blender)
1 egg, beaten
4-6tbs milk or water
2tbsp runny honey
4oz sugar (caster or soft brown sugar is fine)
1tsp vanilla essense
3 fl oz/90ml vegetable oil

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir until just combined. Add a handful of chopped walnuts and/or raisins at the last stir if you want (optional but tasty).
Spoon the mix into prepared muffin tin and bake for approx 20mins - until the tops spring back when pressed.

These are gorgeous just as they are or you can add a simple cream cheese frosting when cool - 1 heaped tbsp cream cheese to 2oz/55g icing sugar and a dash of vanilla essence beaten together until smooth. This makes enough frosting for 6 muffins. I usually freeze the other half of the batch (without frosting). You can take them out of the freezer when you need them and just give them about 30 seconds in the microwave or 10 mins in a warm oven to defrost and warm through.

So there you have it - a tasty, nutritious, quick recipe using carrots that even a sworn carrot-hater can't help but enjoy... (just don't tell them what the secret ingredient is!)

If you like these why not try my Courgette and Cocoa muffins for more 'hidden vegetable' yumminess?


Do you have a carrot based recipe you want to share? Why not hop along to Working London Mummy's blog and join in the 'One Ingredient' challenge...