Carrot Cake Muffins With Cream Cheese Glaze

The carrot cake muffins in front of a basket with fresh carrots in it.

Carrot Cake Muffins With Cream Cheese Glaze

Add a delicious treat to your brunch menu with these carrot cake muffins with cream cheese glaze! These ultra moist, cakey muffins feature a fluffy, tender crumb with the perfect touch of warm spices. Paired with the sweet and tangy cream cheese glaze, you won't find a more decadent muffin.

Course Breakfast

Cuisine American

Prep Time 20

Cook Time 20

Total Time 40

Servings muffins

Calories 184kcal

Author Amanda McGrory-Dixon

Equipment

Mixing bowls
Muffin pans
Muffin liners

Ingredients

Carrot Cake Muffins

1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour spooned and leveled
¾ cup dark brown sugar packed
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg preferably freshly grated
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
¼ teaspoon ground allspice
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 eggs room temperature
1 cup freshly grated carrots about 3 whole carrots (see note)
½ cup buttermilk shaken before measuring
½ cup vegetable oil
½ cup crushed pineapple well drained
½ cup shredded coconut
2 teaspoons vanilla extract or paste

Cream Cheese Glaze

4 ounces cream cheese softened
2 ½ cups powdered sugar
2-4 tablespoons milk

Instructions

Carrot Cake Muffins

Heat oven to 425 degrees and place baking liners in a muffin tray. Set aside.
In a large mixing bowl, stir together flour, dark brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, allspice, salt, baking soda and baking powder until well combined. Some lumps will be unavoidable, but try to break up any big brown sugar lumps.
In a separate large mixing bowl, whisk together eggs, carrots, buttermilk, vegetable oil, crushed pineapple, shredded coconut and vanilla extract until combined.
Pour the wet ingredients over the dry ingredients and fold just until combined. Do not overmix. Leaving some lumps is OK. The batter won't be perfectly smooth.
Spoon the batter into baking liners so that it's three-fourths full. Place in the 425-degree oven. Keeping the oven closed, immediately turn oven temperature to 350 degrees. Bake until a toothpick comes out clean, about 20 minutes. Remove from oven.
As soon as they're cool enough to handle, remove from the muffin pan and place on a wire rack to cool. Once cool, drizzle with cream cheese glaze. See below for the cream cheese glaze recipe. Enjoy!

Cream Cheese Glaze

In a large mixing bowl, beat the softened cream cheese until light and fluffy.
Add about ½ cup powdered sugar and beat until combined. Repeat until you use all the powdered sugar, scraping down the side of the bowl as necessary.
Add the vanilla extract and 2 tablespoons of milk and beat until combined. If you need to thin it out, add the remaining 2 tablespoons of milk. Either pour in a squeeze bottle to drizzle on the cake or do so directly.

Video

Notes

Do not use those pre-shredded carrots from the store. They're too dry. Instead, use the small holes on a box grater to grate the carrots.
Do not scoop your flour when measuring. You need to spoon the flour into the measuring cup and then level with a knife. Scooping packs in too much flour, and it will throw off the recipe.
I recommend completely draining the pineapple in a fine-mesh sieve.
If you forget to allow your eggs to come to room temperature, you can speed up the process by setting them in warm -- not hot -- water for 10 minutes.
If you don't have buttermilk, you can make your own substitute by adding ½ tablespoon lemon juice or distilled white vinegar to whole milk. Let the mixture sit for five to 10 minutes, and it's then ready to use.
For baking at 5,280 feet altitude, I used ⅞ teaspoon baking soda and ⅞ teaspoon baking powder. I made no other changes.
Nutritional information is only an estimate. The accuracy of the nutritional information for any recipe on this site is not guaranteed.

Nutrition