Help wanted with Carrot Cake muffin recipe

sedohre

Hi, I'm a baking novice. I tried for the first time to make carrot cake muffins. I used this recipe

3 xl eggs
2 cups light brown sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons cinnamon
3 cups grated carrot
1 cup Donegal Rapeseed Oil
2 cups plain flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt

I got the recipe from here http://goodfoodireland.ie/recipe/carrot-cake/2167

Now I deviated...

I was reading a few recipes and for muffins it said 25mins. That's what I cooked them for, they looked a bit too moist so I left them in for another 10mins. The above recipe is for a loaf tin for 50-60mins.

They tasted fine, too sweet for me really but I thought they turned out a bit to sugar soaked, not enough sponge. They didn't turn out like sponge muffins you'd buy in the shops.

I baked half the batch yesterday. The rest of the mixture I left in the fridge overnight.

Now I put a guess of 2/3rds cup of self raising flour and will be baking it in a while (letting the mixture get to room temp before I bake? I think I red that somewhere) .

Any advice or recommendations, critique please.

Thanks

Faith

Carrot cake is completely different from a shop bought muffin. It's comparing apples and oranges.

Baking is a science, with very precise ratios. You can't just mess around with quantities and expect good results. Add extra flour and see what happens, but in my opinion, it's likely to become dry and tough.

Also, having being left in the fridge overnight, you're very unlikely to get any kind of rise. Once you've mixed the raising agent with wet ingredients, you should try to bake as quickly as possible.

My advice, overall, would be to throw out what you have left and start again with a different recipe.

But if you do try to salvage them, do report back and let us know how it turned out.

As an aside, I've never seen an Irish recipe using cups before. I'm guessing that recipe was originally American and hasn't travelled well.

/edit: The ratios look off to me, on closer inspection. I'd usually use 1 part flour to maybe 0.7 parts sugar, and less eggs and carrots. It's definitely a VERY sweet recipe!

phormium

Don't mess with recipes, baking is a science and you have to be accurate. Some substitutions are alright, for example you could replace sultanas with chocolate chips or similar but the basic flour/sugar/fat ratios have to be right.

You will never make muffins that taste like shop bought ones, not unless you buy a big sack of powdered cake mix full of all sorts of chemically goodness!

There is a very good carrot cake recipe on the Odlums site, there are a couple of them but the wedding cake carrot cake one has a higher proportion of flour which makes it a firmer less sweet cake if you like that, that is my preferred recipe.

sedohre

Thank you very much for such a detailed reply Faith.
Thanks phormium.
I cooked it in an oven dish for 1hr @160 this time. The mix wasn't at room temp when I put it in the oven but it wasn't fridge cold.

It turned out much better. The texture was much better. More solid, it took out the sugary moistness as it was too moist. It did rise well and was still moist enough for me.

Thanks again