Kid loving Carrot Pineapple Muffins
If you love regular carrot cake muffins, you will absolutely love these bakery style carrot pineapple muffins! They are packed with flavor, super moist from using oil and crushed pineapple, and really easy to make with just 2 bowls. Because everything is better with frosting, were topping these with a nice slather of classic cream cheese frosting. Whether you’re making them for breakfast, a snack, or a brunch party, you will love these muffins. They are very kid friendly and great as mini muffins too!
If your’e a carrot cake muffin lover then you will love these carrot pineapple muffins! These may not be the first flavor combo you think of when you are making muffins, but they are definitely worth trying!
For this recipe I used crushed pineapple because it melts better into the batter without leaving huge chunks you have to bite through. This along with using oil as the fat for the recipe, makes and keeps this muffins super moist.
As a trained pastry chef, I make sure to take the time to test out my recipes. They dont just look pretty but I make sure they taste really good too!
These muffins were so good, I decided to make this into a Carrot Pineapple Cake too. Except that one is frosted with orange cream cheese frosting which takes the flavor combo to the next level.
If you ran out of butter you can also make this cream cheese frosting without butter and still get equally delicious results!
Shred your own carrots
I’m all for shortcuts in the kitchen but this is one place I wouldnt take one. For best results, shred your own carrots either in a food processor or with a box grater. I prefer to use a box grater because I absolutely hate cleaning my food processor and will only bring it out if I * have * to.
Pre shredded carrots are a straight up bad idea. They are too chunky and stringy to melt into the muffins and you will have to bite down hard on them, leaving a weird texture to it. Take my advice, just grate your own, its worth it!
Making the muffins
All you need are two bowls. Please read the full instructions on the bottom of this post but what you’ll have to do is add the wet ingredients into one bowl and the dry into the other.
The carrots and pineapples are gonna be in the wet bowl.
Then you’ll pour the dry ingredients into the wet ingredient bowl, so if you have different sizes, make sure that the larger one is for the wet ingredients.
Mix just until combined and the batter is lumpy!
Theres no need to mix hard or fast here. That will actually make your muffins super dense and tough because you will overwork the gluten in the flour.
You want the flour and dry ingredients to just soak into the wet ingredients, it should be very lumpy.
Bakery style muffins
Fill the muffin batter into the tin, alllllll the way up to the top. You want to do this because this helps create a tall round top. The batter needs to bake over the rim to have that bakery look and style.
Bake on 425°F for 7 mins, and then reduce the oven temperature to 350°F. This initial high heat bakes the top of the muffin creating a tall round top. Then when you lower the heat, it will bake the inside of the muffins.
These are the tricks I use to bake every single one of my muffin recipes.
Frosting
While the muffins are cooling either in the tin or on a wire rack, make the frosting. Cream cheese frosting goes extremely well with these. I wouldnt worry about making them look pretty. All I did was use the back of a spoon to slather some frosting on.
Make them mini
To make these into mini muffins, you’ll have to get a mini muffin tin. Fill them up to the top the way you would with regular sized muffins. Bake them on 425°F for 5 minutes and then on 350°F for 7 minutes. Use the back of a teaspoon to add the frosting.
These are super kid friendly muffins too! Making them mini for kids is an even better idea, I bet they will gobble them up in no time! My little man couldnt stop himself from grabbing them!
Yield
These make 12 perfect sized regular muffins. If you make them into minis, you’ll probably get around 40+ mini muffins.
Kid loving Carrot Pineapple Muffins
Ingredients
- 1 cups shredded carrots, 2 medium or 1 large- 135 g
- 1 cup crushed pineapple, use a spoon to add to measuring cup, not drained
- 3 large eggs
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil
- ¼ cup milk, any kind
- 2 ½ cups all purpose flour
- 3/4 cup dark brown sugar
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- ½ teaspoon
baking soda
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 425° F and line a 12 cup muffin tip with muffin liners.
- Using a box grater or a food processor, grate the carrots.
- Take out 2 medium sized bowls. In one bowl, add the 1 cup shredded carrots and 1 cup crushed pineapple. Spoon the crushed pineapple into a measuring cup, don’t drain it.
- Add the 3 large eggs, ½ cup vegetable oil, and ¼ cup milk to the wet ingredients and whisk well.
- In the second bowl, add the 2 ½ cups flour, ¾ cup dark brown sugar, 2 tsp baking powder, ½ tsp baking soda, 1 tsp cinnamon, and ½ tsp kosher salt. Whisk well.
- All at once, add the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients.
- Using a large spatula, lightly and gently fold in the flour taking care not to over mix or mix too hard. You want the flour to JUST mix in till there are no more large streaks. The batter will be lumpy.
- Using an ice cream scoop for accuracy, scoop the batter into the prepared muffin tin all the way to the top.
- Bake for 7 minutes on 425, then lower the temperature to 350°F and continue to bake for another 13-15 minutes.
- Take the muffins out and let them cool for 5-10 minutes in the tin, then remove and cool completely on a wire rack.
- Make the cream cheese frosting. You can also make this cream cheese frosting without butter.
- When the muffins are cool, use the back of a spoon to slather the muffins with the frosting.
