Carrot Wheat Muffin

Cheers for a New Year 2013!
I hope the true spirit of the season finds you and fills your heart with joy.

Pic : Morning Sunshine @ Rancabali Tea Plantation, Ciwidey, West Java. 28.12.2012

The super busy month of December has passed by very fast. Too fast.
Yesterday, early morning, we just got back from a short vacation with our big family. Spending time with our both sides of family in two different places. We spent two nights at the beautiful tea plantation in Ciwidey (West Java), one day country road journey to Cipanas (another town in West Java) and spent 3 days in Kota Bunga, Cipanas-Cianjur where we were welcoming the birth of year 2013.
Nice and a bit tiring vacation, and now...I'm so glad to be 'back in civilization'.
Another news; I have to work hard to burn some calories after the 'holiday eating season'.

Back to my laptop; editing many-many pictures when at the same time I am distracted by mountains of dirty laundry. Ooo ow!

Now, let me confess about my '12 Days of Christmas Baking' ambitious project ...
As I wrote on my previous post that I had challenged myself with an exciting Baking Project, and the result...
I didn't make it! Not 100%.

From December 10 to December 24, I only managed to bake for 9 times in between lots of activities; 3 baking short...
I'll post the recipe (with the 'nice' pictures) gradually, in the next couple of days.



A bit disappointing, but on the other side I'm glad not to push myself too hard, and I enjoyed every single moment I had been through; from choosing the recipe, prepare the ingredients, baking, ...smelling the aroma of the baked good from the oven, styling, photographing the food, and watching my family members crucified them, bit by bit. Priceless.

Now... I'm ready to gather my energy to start blogging, and I will bake another 3 recipes to complete that project... as the Christmas tree still stands tall beautifully in our living room. Hhmm, our jars are totally empty after back from vacation, and I'll start to fill them all one by one.

For now, let me share the recipe of Carrot Wheat Muffin, that I baked on my 'second day' of Christmas Baking.

On that day, I still had plenty of carrots after baking the 'Carrot Cake Cookies'. I remember that I marked this recipe months ago after reading the ingredients and imagined that fresh-from-the-oven muffin will produce a 'pleasant aroma' that can enhance our Christmas mood.

Actually, it's nothing difficult about baking muffin.
At the beginning I was a bit worried to put too much batter in the paper cups, because couple of times I got overloaded muffin in my oven. So I decided only to put half batter on each paper cup and used additional 2 little loaves pan. So we got 10 medium size muffins and 2 little loaves muffins.

I got all beautiful delicious carrot muffins as I had imagined. The fragrant Christmas aroma, the beautiful texture, and delicious combinations from those ingredients.

A happy ending simple baking for that busy day.

Carrot Wheat Muffin
Source : Muffin Mania by Cathy Prange and Joan Pauli, September 1987.

Ingredients :
1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp allspice
1 cup carrots, coarsely grated
1 tsp grated orange rind
1 egg
1 cup milk
1/4 cup molasses, I substituted with honey and maple syrup mix.
1/4 cup melted butter
1/2 cup raisins and dry cranberries
1/4 cup chopped nuts



Method :
Measure dry ingredients in large bowl.
Stir in carrots and orange rind.

In small bowl, beat egg with milk, molasses and melted butter.
Add to dry ingredients all at once, stirring just to moisten.

Fold in raisins, dry cranberries and nuts.
Fill greased muffin cups 3/4 full.

Bake 375 F/ 180 C, for 20 minutes.



note :
Those muffins were baked, photographed, and served in the my kitchen. -behind the scene-

Have a good Thursday night, Friends.
Keep baking, keep clicking... Hope you enjoy this beautiful January.