These carrot cake muffins are deliciously moist and topped with a crumb topping and cream cheese glaze!
Tangy cream cheese glaze, crunchy cinnamon topping, and a fluffy moist muffin, these carrot cake muffins make an amazing breakfast option!
Carrot Cake Muffins
First off these muffins were not supposed to happen this weekend. It was my birthday hoorayyyy! I went away for the weekend to see family and obviously a Maroon5 concert.
How was it?
Amazing. Again, obviously.
Anyways, I got home on Monday and was scheduling out the rest of the week, and something came over me that said I needed to have carrot cake.
But- I was not down to make an entire cake, plus there’s been a lot of cake recently on the blog so I thought I should branch out a little.
Solution? Carrot cake muffins! Still cake but shh its fine.
At first I thought cupcakes, but then realized I wasn’t in the mood to make a cream cheese frosting that would pipe nicely. I also wanted something more breakfasty, like these chocolate chip muffins.
Which led me to my next thought- make carrot cake muffins and a cream cheese glaze! Ooh and make a crumb topping so that when you bite into it you get a nice crunch, tangy sweetness, and fluffy “cake”.
DONE AND DONE.
I whipped these babies up Tuesday night and ran them by my 6 year old who is by the way, my biggest critic. He really tells it like it is. Last time, I ran one of my lemon poppyseed cake recipes by him he told me it was “like a little bit good but not that good”. Which led me to 3 more rounds of testing.
Anyways, I ran these by him and he goes, “Mommy these carrot cake muffins are amazing, they are like really really good”
PHEW.
Carrot Cake Muffins with Crumb Topping and Cream Cheese Glaze
Ingredients
- For the crumb topping:
- 1 cup all purpose flour
- ½ cup brown sugar
- ¼ cup granulated sugar
- ¼-½ teaspoon cinnamon depending on preference
- ½ cup cold butter diced small
For the carrot cake muffins:
- 2 cups shredded carrots
- 2 ½ cups all purpose flour
- 1 cup of brown sugar
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- 4 large eggs
- 1 cup vegetable oil
- ¼ cup milk
For the cream cheese glaze:
- 2 tablespoons cream cheese softened at room temperature
- 1 cup confectioners sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 teaspoons milk
Instructions
- Make the crumb topping first- In a small bowl combine the flour, sugars, and cinnamon. Use a pastry cutter to cut in the butter or pinch the butter into the mixture with your fingers gently until medium clumps form. Put in the fridge until you are ready to use.
- Preheat your oven to 400° F and line a muffin tray with muffin liners and set aside.
- In a food processor, process the shredded carrots until they are in tiny pieces. Set aside.
- In a medium sized bowl combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. Stir to combine.
- In another medium sized bowl combine the eggs and oil, and whisk to combine.
- Add in the milk, and then the shredded carrots, mixing well.
- Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix ONLY until it is just combined. Do not overmix or your muffins will come out tough. The batter will be lumpy, thats ok.
- Fill each muffin liner about 3/4 of the way full and top with the crumb topping mixture- sprinkle as much on as you like!
- Bake the muffins for 5 minutes on 400° and then without opening the oven, reduce the temperature to 350° and bake for another 18 minutes or until the muffins are golden brown in color.
- While the muffins are cooling make the cream cheese glaze. In a small bowl, combine all the glaze ingredients and whisk until a smooth runny glaze forms.
- Drizzle over each muffin and enjoy!
These look like a dream!
These carrot muffins are moist with the perfect amount of sweetness. The crumb topping is my favorite part! 😋
Thank you so much Shevi!! I am so happy you like them!!! Thanks for your sweet comment!
Delicious recipe!! I made 12 large bakery style muffins with this recipe and they are as picture perfect as they are yummy!! Thank you for sharing this!
Thank you so much Amye!!! So happy you loved them and thanks for the star rating and review, yay!!
I didn’t want to make a whole cake either and I’ve been making / sharing Jumbo muffins with family. I really wanted carrot cake muffins. I had two recipes before me and I ended up choosing yours because the other recipe just had SO much sugar in it! I was skepical. The batter was very thick / heavy I was afraid of over mixing it and a crumb topping?! I already had leftover cream cheese frosting in the fridge so I figured I’d use that too if needed. These muffins are great. Moist, not the leat bit dense, cooked through beautifully and a great not to sweet but still sweet flavor. I’m glad I chose your recipe and I will def. make them again. Thank you! It made 8 jumbo muffins.
AHH Joanna! YAY I am so honored you chose these to make! Thank you so much for your comment and review, I am so happy you loved them!!