Low-Fat Whole Wheat (but still delicious) Carrot Muffins

I had 4 giant leftover carrots from the cake in the previous post. What to do?

I figured my options were:
feed them to my bunny (pictured mid-bite with her 2nd favorite treat) and/or make random dishes with shredded carrot.

Since both of these options would surely fail to use up 5 cups of shredded carrot before they went bad, I turned to baking. After searching for a healthy version of carrot bread, I came upon a recipe for low-fat carrot muffins using whole wheat flour on RecipeZaar.

After doubling the recipe to use up all the carrots, I had 23 muffins, half of which got a drizzle of reduced-fat cream cheese icing (about 2 T reduced-fat cream cheese, 3 T powdered sugar, 2 T milk - adjust ingredients as needed to make the right consistency):


Here's the recipe with a few adjustments:
* 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
* 1 teaspoon baking soda
* 1 teaspoon baking powder
* 2-4 teaspoons cinnamon**
* 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
* 1/2 cup brown sugar
* 1 egg, slightly beaten
* 3 tablespoons oil
* 2 teaspoons vanilla
* 1/2 cup nonfat milk
* 1 8 oz can crushed pineapple, well drained (I forgot to drain it and ended up squeezing moisture out of my carrot-pineapple mixture)
* 1 1/2 cups grated carrots
* 1/2 cup raisins

1. Set oven to 350 degrees.
2. Line 12 muffin tins with paper liners or spray tins with non-stick cooking spray.
3. In a large bowl mix together first 7 ingredients.
4. In a small bowl whisk together egg, oil, milk and vanilla.
5. In a medium bowl mix the shredded carrots with the crushed pineapple.
6. Add in the oil/egg mixture into the carrot/pineapple mixture; mix well to combine, then add to the dry ingredients; mix JUST until combined.
7. Add in the raisins.
8. Divide the mixture between the 12 muffin tins.
9. Bake for about 20-25 minutes, or until the muffins test done.

**The original recipe called for 1 1/2 teaspoons of cinnamon, but it's my favorite spice and I always add way more than I'm supposed to. Do whatever you feel is right ;)


Of course, the bunny (aptly named Cinnamon, a.k.a. Cinnabun) still got her treats too:

She's kinda spoiled ;)