carrot cake

These carrot cake cream cheese mini muffins are an homage to the fall like weather we’ve had the past few days. Cinnamon, carrots, cream cheese – all of these scream fall to me. Plus, I’ve been on a carrot mission this weekend – carrots have been accumulating in the fridge veggie drawer over the past two CSAs. I opted to go the carrot cake route to take care of a couple of them, creating these carrot cake cream cheese mini muffins.

I’m a fan of mini-muffins, as you may have noticed. These are the perfect size for a quick treat to go with my coffee first thing in the morning. They also freeze beautifully, which means I can pack two of them in my lunch, keep it in the fridge overnight, and be ready to enjoy a cozy muffin first thing in the morning. The size also keeps the portion to a reasonable calorie intake. I also love the idea of cream cheese on the inside of the muffin rather than as frosting. It’s such a perfectly tangy little surprise in these mini muffins.

This week’s CSA share made me glad, yet again, that I live here on the Southern Oregon coast. We’re getting an abundance of fava beans – which just happen to be my favorite snack. They are so easy to roast and can be eaten pretty much in their entirety this way. In addition to favas, we got lettuce, tomatoes, an onion, carrots, broccoli, and zucchini. We picked up berries, jalapenos, Anaheim peppers, corn, and more tomatoes from the farmer’s market. The haul this week resulted in a salad (no surprise there), grilled corn, tomato/pepper/onion Pico de Gallo, more zucchini pancakes, broccoli cheddar pot pies (recipe will be on the blog later this week), and these carrot cake cream cheese mini muffins.

I love that the carrots we’ve been getting just taste intensely carroty. Talk about the terroir of the land – all of the produce we’ve gotten has reflected where we live. And despite the fact that sometimes I look in the fridge and scream Eek! at the thought of all the cooking I need to do, I’m really enjoying this season.

I sized down this recipe to make a reasonable number of mini-muffins (a total of 16). You could definitely size up easily and make several batches worth. I resisted, as I’m pretty sure I’ll be getting more carrots next week and am trying to avoid stacks and stacks of freezer food I’ll never make it through.