Carrot Muffins - #MuffinMonday

My five year old nephew is going through what I hope is a phase. It's an "I don't want anything to eat;  I just want to sit and watch YouTube" phase. After school, he comes to see me and if I let him, he will sit and watch YouTube for five hours. Occasionally, he will want to pause to "battle" and play with the dog. But otherwise, it's all about YouTube.

"AJ, it's time for dinner."
"No, I'm not ready yet."
"You have to eat."
"But then what will I do with my phone?"

It's a problem that we're working on. It occurred to me that I could get some food into him (healthy or not) if it was portable. Foods that he could eat while mindlessly watching unboxing videos. I decided to start with muffins. He likes cake so something that looks almost like a cupcake should be good, right? I went with carrot muffins because I had just made Food Lust People Love's carrot cake and saw that one of her carrot muffins recipes was pretty similar.

One afternoon, I quickly whipped them up before he got to the house. I was taking them out the oven when he walked through the door. My brother immediately grabbed a hot muffin out of the pan. I waited until the others cooled then presented a muffin to AJ. I wish the rest of this story was that he loved them and couldn't wait to have more and ever since then I have been baking hundreds of carrot muffins. I wish.

"Here, AJ"
"What is it?"
"A muffin."
"I don't like muffins."
"Have you ever had a muffin?"
"No."
"Then how do you know that you don't like them? Please try it." This was said while pushing a piece into his mouth.
He then spat it out and repeated, "I don't like muffins, I said!"

Sigh.

I assure you that the muffins are delicious! Don't let my picky nephew sway you. We all happily ate that batch and then I made more that we happily ate again without offering him any. Muffins are not the answer to the refusal to eat. I don't know what is. But hopefully, one day soon, I will find something that he will happily put down YouTube to eat.

Be sure to check out the other muffins for Muffin Monday below the recipe!

Carrot Muffins

(yield: 12 muffins, adapted from Food Lust People Love)

Ingredients

225 grams carrots (before peeling)

200 grams flour

35 grams oat flour

170 grams brown sugar

1 tablespoon grated ginger

2 teaspoon baking powder

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 eggs

1/2 cup oil

2/3 cup milk

Directions

Peel and chop the carrots then cook until fork tender. When the carrots are tender, mash and set aside to cool.

Preheat oven to 350 F and grease a 12 cup muffin pan.

Whisk together flour, oat flour, brown sugar, ginger, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt. In a separate container, whisk together eggs, oil, and milk.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients. Gently stir together until just combined. Divide the batter among the muffin wells.

Bake 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

• Apple Crisp Muffins from Making Miracles
• Candied Ginger and Oatmeal Muffins from Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Carrot Muffins from Passion Kneaded
• Double Corn Muffins from A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Golden Beet Muffins with Caramel and Chocolate from Farm Fresh Feasts
• Orange and Plum Muffins from Food Lust People Love

#MuffinMonday is a group of muffin loving bakers who get together once a month to bake muffins. You can see all our of lovely muffins by following our Pinterest board.

Updated links for all of our past events and more information about Muffin Monday, can be found on our home page.