TWD: Spiced Carrot Muffins

I had been looking forward to the release of the Miette cookbook for a long time. Miette is a gorgeous bakery in San Francisco with exceptional cookies and cakes. I happen to work near the location in the Ferry Building and sometimes it takes great willpower to not buy their treats (or pretty cake stands). I was ecstatic when I received my copy of the book and could start baking through it - the book is as pretty as the store and has all their amazing recipes, including scones that are no longer available.



The first thing I made from the book was lemon shortbread, which I sent to my sister and she said she loved. The second thing I made, or rather attempted, was carrot cupcakes, which were intended to go to work with me. I say attempted, because the cupcakes didn’t exactly turn out as planned. I overfilled the pans and they ended up looking much more muffin-like than the cupcakes they were intended to be. I had also made a mini-loaf and dropped it on the ground, much to the delight of a certain Weimaraner. I got over the aesthetics of the cupcakes - I mean really, no one is going to care if the cupcake is a little big. However, the cream cheese icing I made totally did not turn out. For some reason it was completely thin and when I tried to pipe it on the cupcakes, it just ran off. I assume this must have been user error: I used reduced fat cream cheese rather than full fat.* At this point I was totally frustrated and decided the cupcakes would not be going to work.




Since the cupcake/muffins did not end up going to work with me, Josh and I ended up deciding we could call them muffins and ate them for breakfast for several days. Okay, so I’ll finally get to the point of this story: this week’s Tuesdays With Dorie recipe is Spiced Carrot Muffins, and since the failed cupcake incident and subsequent carrot muffin overconsumption was just a couple weeks ago, I wasn’t sure if Josh would be up for another round of carrot treats. Luckily he was, so I went ahead and made them.

I forgot to buy carrots when I went grocery shopping last weekend and didn’t get a chance to make the muffins until tonight, therefore I am unable to give them a rating, as we have not had an opportunity to try them yet. I will say they did not stress me out nearly as much as the last carrot treat. I have high hopes, though, and we still have a couple of the last batch in the freezer, so we might have an opportunity to taste the difference between a carrot cake and a carrot muffin. Many thanks to Nancy of The Dogs Eat the Crumbs for hosting this week, you can find the recipe here on her site and visit the TWD site to see what the other bakers, who may have actually tried the muffins, thought of the selection.

*I take full responsibility for the errors I made with the carrot cupcakes from Miette, but if you are considering buying this book, I would recommend waiting until October. I received an email (actually Josh did, since the book was purchase from his Amazon account) apologizing for the errors in the book and saying that I would receive an updated version when it has its second printing.