Carrot Cake Oat Muffins

These carrot cake oat muffins are not only a scrumptious snack but also a fantastic way to get kids interested in this vitamin A-rich veggie!

They are a great way to expose your kids to a food like carrots, especially when they might not be ready or interested in eating them raw or cooked. These also work great for breakfast or in a lunch box!

Carrot Cake Oat Muffin Ingredients

Let’s take a closer look at the ingredients that make these muffins a nutritious and delicious option for your family’s breakfast or snack time.

• Soy Milk & Lemon Juice: This combination creates a vegan buttermilk, providing the muffins with a tender texture and a subtle tangy flavor.
• Rolled Oats & Oat Flour: Oats are a nutritional powerhouse, offering fiber, vitamins, and minerals. Oat flour adds a lovely, nutty taste to the muffins and boosts their nutritional value.
• Baking Soda & Baking Powder: These leavening agents help the muffins rise and create a light, fluffy texture.
• Cinnamon & Nutmeg: The spices help to craft that carrot cake flavor.
• Maple Syrup: Adds subtle sweetness without a sugar overload.
• Olive or Avocado Oil: These oils provide moistness to the muffins and add healthy fats that kiddos need to thrive.
• Vanilla Extract: Enhancing the flavor profile, vanilla extract helps build the carrot cake flavor.
• Carrots: The star ingredient! Carrots provide a hefty dose of vitamin A and other essential nutrients, contributing to eye health and a robust immune system.
• Crushed Walnuts or Pecans (optional): These nuts add a delightful crunch and healthy fats to the muffins, making them even more satisfying.

Why We Love These Carrot Cake Oat Muffins

These muffins are easy to make and contain a nice balance of healthy plant-based foods. Oats provide soluble fiber and protein. The carrots also contain fiber as well as vitamin A and antioxidant-rich carotenoids.

The oil adds fat that makes up a necessary part of the diets of growing kiddos, and the soy milk provides calcium and iron. Put these all into a muffin and you have a classic, tasty, filling, and nutritionally solid healthy breakfast, lunch box component, or snack!

Tips for Success

• If you don’t have time to grate your carrots on a traditional grater, you can use the grating attachment on your food processor! Easy. If you’d like your kid to help grate the carrots but are a little nervous about having them use a grater, they sell gloves that look like chain mail. What’s better than pretending to be a knight in shining armor at the same time as grating up a healthy treat!
  
• Do not substitute 2 cups of oat flour instead of grinding up 2 cups of oats and turning that into oat flour. It does not have a 1:1 ratio. Grinding 2 cups of oats will yield slightly less than 2 cups of oat flour.
  
• For younger babies, you can omit the maple syrup and substitute it with mashed banana.

Ingredient Swaps

• Want to try other veggies in these muffins? Shredded zucchini could totally work.
• Those with a nut allergy can leave out the optional walnuts or pecans.
• Other plant milks like almond, oat, or coconut should work equally well.
• The maple syrup can be swapped for cane sugar or a date paste.
• Whole wheat or all-purpose flour can also be swapped for the oat flour, decrease the amount by 1/2 cup.

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Carrot Cake Oat Muffins

These carrot cake oat muffins are not only a scrumptious snack but also a fantastic way to get kids interested in this vitamin A-rich veggie!

Print Recipe

Prep Time:5 minutes minutes

Cook Time:25 minutes minutes

Servings:12 muffins

Ingredients

• 1 cup soy milk
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 2 1/4 cups rolled oats
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1/2 cup maple syrup
• 1/2 cup olive or avocado oil
• 1 tablespoon vanilla
• 1 1/2 cup carrots, grated
• 1/2 cup crushed walnuts or pecans

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
• In a small bowl, whisk together soy milk and lemon juice. Set aside.
• In a blender or food processor grind up 2 cups oats into a fine flour.
• Add oat flour to a large bowl, and mix with remaining oats, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, salt, and nutmeg.
• In another bowl, whisk together the maple syrup, oil, and vanilla.
• Fold the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients.
• Fold in the carrots and walnut.
• Add to a greased or lined muffin tin and bake for 23-25 minutes.

Storing and Batch-Cooking Muffins

These muffins will last for about a week in the fridge or 3 months in the freezer. Store in an air-tight container. We prefer these glass storage containers. We also highly recommend making 2-3 batches because if you’re like our families, you’re going to go through them quickly!

Exposure vs. Hiding Vegetables: Nurturing Healthy Relationships with Food

As nutrition experts and moms, we firmly believe in embracing a positive approach to food and nutrition. By openly incorporating carrots into these muffins – versus “hiding” them – your kids get a chance to experience and appreciate the taste and texture of this nutritious vegetable.

When children are exposed to a variety of foods, they are more likely to develop a love for wholesome ingredients and make healthier choices in the long run. It also avoids the fallout that may come when children feel they’re hoodwinked into eating something they didn’t approve.

Get your kiddos involved in the fun by letting them scoop the ingredients, press the button on the blender, or even shred the carrots (if age-appropriate). You may be surprised – they might even just take a big bite right then and there!

More Muffin Recipes

• Strawberry Cauliflower Muffins
• Blueberry Walnut Muffin Tops
• PBJ Baby-Led Weaning Muffins
• Blueberry Baked Oatmeal Cups

If you try these carrot cake oat muffins, make sure to come back to leave a rating and a comment! Seeing you make our recipes makes our day and your feedback helps other readers.