Carrot Date muffin Recipe

I've made these before, but I was asked for the recipe since I served them again yesterday. I'll post the original recipe and how I modified it.

The recipe comes from the Company's Coming Mostly Muffins book. Page 46. Here is their

Date Nut Carrot Muffin recipe
1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
2/3 cup brown sugar, packed
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg

2 large eggs, fork beaten
3/4 cup buttermilk (or use 1 Tbsp lemon juice and enough milk to make 3/4 cup)
1/3 cup cooking oil
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 cup chopped dates
1/2 cup chopped pecans

1 1/2 cups grated carrot

Measure first 8 ingredients into a large bowl. Stir. Make well in centre.
Combine next 6 ingredients in medium bowl. Add to well.
Add carrot. Stir until just moistened. Fill 12 greased or lined muffin cups 3/4 full. Bake in 375 degree oven for 20 to 22 minutes until wooden pick inserted in centre of muffin comes out clean. Let stand in pan for 5 minutes before removing to wire rack to cool. Makes 12 muffins.

Now then, Keep reading to see my variant of the recipe.
Most noticeably, after typing in this recipe, I realize that I did not remember the brown sugar! Oops. I did think as I was mixing that there should be SOME sugar, so I put in 3 Tbsp of white sugar. Here's what I actually put in the muffins in the photo:

1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
3 Tbsp. white sugar
1/2 cup home-made granola (oatmeal, sunflower seeds, whole wheat flour, honey, oil, sesame seeds, wheat germ)
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/3 tsp. salt
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
dash ground nutmeg

2 large eggs, fork beaten
1 Tbsp lemon juice and enough milk to make 3/4 cup soured milk
1/3 cup cooking oil
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 cup chopped dates and raisins combined
1/4 cup fine coconut

1 1/2 cups grated carrot

I used the same method as above. They made very textured, moist muffins.

Carrot Date muffins

I wanted to make muffins this morning, but there was a lack of bananas in my house, so I found a recipe I hadn't made before: Date Nut Carrot Muffins. I wanted to take them to my play group to share so I couldn't add nuts. I just made them without nuts. The recipe is from the "Company's Coming Mostly Muffins" page 46.

They are lovely muffins, but I like a bit of crunch or squish in my muffins so I would have preferred them with nuts or raisins. The dates disappeared almost entirely! They made the carrot muffins even softer than usual. Certainly a make-again!

Val's Date Bread p. 441

If you like banana bread with walnuts, you must try this one! It was sweet, sticky and delicious! It was packed with nuts and dates and the crust was perfectly crunchy. It was awesome. Dates and walnuts were the only things in it that are not always in my pantry anyway. I might try to healthy it up a bit next time (although it may not be as delicious then). I think it would still be fine with a little less sugar and even more dates and some whole wheat flour. It's worth a try.

Look at how packed with nuts and dates that is! It's beautiful. The recipe says to make two small loaves, but I only have large loaf pans, so I made one large loaf and 8 muffins. I baked the muffins for 30 minutes, instead of 50 for the loaf, at 300 in my convection oven. They came out perfectly. Note that you do need to soak the dates for 20 minutes ahead of time, so work that into your schedule.  All in all, I was very pleased with this loaf.