Best "Healthy" Muffins Ever!

I made muffins today.  This alone is not a big deal.  I like making muffins and I tend to make them often.  They are individual-sized snacks that have limitless possibilities.  Breakfast muffins, veggie muffins, blueberry, cinnamon, oatmeal muffins....  There is bran, flour, whole-wheat flour, oat flour based muffins.  I love how easy it is to "sneak" healthy things (ie zucchini) inside of the sugary sweet capsule of warm, gooey deliciousness.  I love muffins!

Today I tried out a new muffin recipe.  It was risky, and I knew that when I began measuring out the first ingredients.  There was carrots involved.  Diced carrots to be exact.  Carrots are a vegetable, and a very visible one, at that.  Baked inside of a dessert or "snack", it would most certainly be detected by the keen eyes of my brood.  Not only were there carrots, there were apples (acceptable), walnuts (iffy) and raisins (also acceptable) involved in the recipe.  I was concerned, but I had all of the ingredients for this healthful(ish) recipe of muffin goodness so it was a no-brainer.  Baking began.

My kids both LOVED the end result.  It is rare that they both love a single recipe.  This one was a winner all around!  Both boys agreed to take the muffins for snack at school and both ate all of their "tester" muffins in two bites flat.  Success!

Here is the recipe that I followed.

Sunshine Muffins

3 eggs

1/2 cup oil

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

3/4 cup sugar

2 cups flour

2 teaspoons baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon nutmeg

2 cups carrots, grated

1 cup apples finely chopped (I used Gala)

1/2 cup raisins

1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans (I used walnuts)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Combine all ingredients except carrots, apples, raisins, and nuts; mix well. Once all ingredients are mixed well stir in the carrots, apples, raisins, and nuts.

Grab some muffins tins and grease them. Then fill each muffin tin about 3/4's full. Bake for 15-18 minutes.

Remove from muffin tins and let cool. Then enjoy!

I call this recipe healthy"ish" because it does contain sugar.  My batch came out to 18 muffins so the 3/4 of a cup of sugar was a good trade off for me for the victory of having my boys SEE and EAT flecks of carrots in their muffin.  They are not picky generally, but seeing a veggie in a "sweet treat" could have pushed them over the edge easily.  Next time I may increase the apple and decrease the amount of sugar to make these a better snack for them.  I do the same "trick" with zucchini muffins in the summer.  The first batch is full of sugar and deliciousness and the boys swoon over the sweetness.  Then the following batches of muffins have decreased amounts of sugar.  I don't want to "trick" the boys into eating hidden veggies, so I am sure to point out that there are carrots involved in what you are about to place inside your mouth.... but I am no fool either.  I sugar those babies up the first time around.  I may have been born at night, but it wasn't last night.

*Just wanted to add that my oldest requested these again today!  He wants them in his snack for school this week....  That is a huge deal!  Try them out if you haven't yet!