Carrot Apple Raisin Muffins

As I was going through my refrigerator produce bins yesterday, putting away everything from my Aldi trip, I discovered a bag of carrot shreds that was starting to dry out.   I didn't want them to go to waste, so I asked my husband for some ideas.  

He offered that I could make a carrot cake, though neither of us are very fond of those.  Plus, I prefer to keep my vegetables and my dessert separate. ;)  I did think that a breakfast bread sounded like a good idea, so since I had been awoke very early this morning by my cat, I began browsing online for carrot muffin recipe ideas.

Most of them contained nuts of some sort, of which I had zilch!  Then I came across this recipe posted by a woman with an in-home day care who said the kids LOVED them.  I figured I had found a winner.

Here are the ingredients:

1 cup raisins
2 cups warm water
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
4 eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
3/4 cup brown sugar
3 cups shredded carrots

DIRECTIONS:

1. Combine raisins and water in a small bowl. Let soak for 15 minutes. Drain raisins, discard water and set raisins aside.
2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease muffin cups or line with paper muffin liners.
3. In a large bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon. In a separate bowl, combine eggs, oil and brown sugar; beat well. Combine egg mixture and flour mixture; mix just until moistened. Fold in carrots and drained raisins. Spoon into prepared muffin cups.
4. Bake in preheated oven for 20 to 30 minutes. Let cool for 30 minutes before frosting.

My "shredded carrots" were the long salad shreds, so I sent them for a few spins in my magic bullet.  4 eggs sounds like a lot of eggs, and 3/4 cups of brown sugar didn't sound very sweet to me, so I opted to substitute two of the eggs with several tablespoons of applesauce to replace the volume.  I imagine they may have been a little bit lighter and fluffier had I used eggs, but they very moist and dense, so they were very filling.  I couldn't even finish a second one.

The recipe text tells of a frosting recipe to use, but I just used a tub of cream cheese frosting from my pantry.  The muffins themselves weren't all that sweet, but they were good enough to be eaten without the frosting.  With the frosting, they are delectable.  My youngest thought we were having cupcakes for breakfast!  

The recipe made 18 muffins, and I think we've only eaten 5 or 6 between the 4 of us, so I will be testing how well these freeze!