Carrot Muffins with Cream Cheese Icing

Step 1

First, preheat your oven to 170C/150C fan/Gas 3. Grease your muffin tins/silicone moulds/prepare your muffin cases.

Step 2

You’ll need two bowls. Into the smaller bowl, weigh out your flour, salt, mixed spice and dried fruit/nuts (if using), then mix them all together to combine.

Step 3

Into your large bowl, weigh the egg, milk, sugar, vanilla, oil and carrots. Whisk these all together so they’re totally combined.

Step 4

 Pour all your dry ingredients into your wet, then VERY GENTLY (using a wooden or metal spoon) fold them together. You should stop JUST when you can’t see any more flour – the mix should still be lumpy. If you find any flour when dishing them out, just stir to combine.

Step 5

Transfer an equal amount of the mix into each muffin tin. Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until golden brown and spring right back when pressed on top. There’s no need for skewers here…

Step 6

Whilst they’re cooling, make the icing. Simply whisk together your cream cheese, icing sugar and lemon until you’ve got rid of all the lumps. I like this quite runny.

Step 7

Once “pretty much cooled” (or as long as you can wait), spoon a dollop of icing on top of each. If I’m honest, I always dunk a few hot ones into my icing almost straight from the oven…

Top Tips:

• For a slightly lighter muffin, you can remove any excess moisture out of your grated carrots by wrapping them in kitchen paper and squeezing tightly.
   
• If you fancy spicing your recipe up a wee bit, add some chopped nuts or dried fruit to your recipe with the dry ingredients. Stay away from chocolate chips or fresh fruit, though; they’re a bit much with this one.

Enjoy!