Light and delicious, these carrot cake muffins are one of Clodagh McKenna's most popular treats.
Ingredients
- 140 ml vegetable oil, plus extra for greasing
- 3 eggs
- 220 g light brown sugar
- 350 g grated carrots, (grated weight)
- 100 g golden raisins
- 250 g self-raising flour
- 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
- for the orange cream cheese icing:
- 300 g cream cheese, chilled
- 70 g butter, at room temperature
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 200 g icing sugar, sifted
- 1 orange, zest only
For Decoration:
- zest of orange
Method
- Preheat the oven to 180°C
- For the carrot cake muffins: beat the eggs in a large bowl, then add the oil, brown sugar, grated carrot and raisins.
- Sift in the rest of the dry ingredients and bring the mixture together using a wooden spoon until well combined.
- Place 12 large muffin cases into a 12 piece muffin tray. Spoon the mixture into the cases, 2/3 full.
- Bake in the oven for 35 - 40 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.
- Remove from the oven and cool completely on a wire rack before icing.
For the Icing:
- Beat the cream cheese and butter together in a bowl until well combined.
- Add the vanilla extract, icing sugar and finely grated orange zest and mix until the icing is smooth and thick.
- Using a palette knife, spread the icing evenly over the cooled cake, dipping the knife into a bowl of hot water if the icing is hard to spread out.
- Decorate the top of the cake with orange zest.
