How to Make Delicious Sourdough Discard Carrot Cake Muffins

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These Sourdough Discard Carrot Cake Muffins are light, fluffy, sweet and spicy. The recipe uses about half a cup of sourdough starter, which is great for when you are wanting to feed it! My 4yr old and 2yr old love these and will devour them any time of day. They have hollow legs and can eat a whole bunch in one sitting. Freeze leftover muffins and heat as and when you are feeling snackish.

My Favourite Sourdough Discard Recipes:

These Sourdough Discard Carrot Cake Muffins are just one of many Sourdough Discard recipes available at simplyhomeandhealth.com and on the internet. Here are a few of my favourite Sourdough Discard recipes, which I make time and time again:

• Curry Cheese Muffins
• Carrot Cake
• Coffee Cake
• Pancakes
• Fluffy Biscuits
• Brown Sugar Cinnamon Scones
• Date and Yoghurt Loaf
• Burnt butter Cookies
• Same Day Bread
• Same Day Bagels
• Pasta
• Dumpling wrappers

Sourdough Discard Carrot Cake Muffin Ingredients

• Flour – muffins usually call for regular, all-purpose cake flour. However, bread flour is the only kind I ever have on hand, and it works really well. The muffins were not tough at all, but light, airy, and fluffy.
• Salt – 1/2 a teaspoon will keep the batch of muffins from tasting bland. Salt brightens and enhances the flavours that are already in the batter.
• Baking soda – the rising agent. Only 1/2 a teaspoon is needed to give these muffins a lovely rise – and rise they surely do! (sometimes it’s hard to believe when you see the raw batter in the bottom of the muffin tray).
• Cinnamon – 2 teaspoons of cinnamon injects a lovely aroma and flavour to the muffins. A classic Carrot Cake spice, cinnamon is a must.
• Mixed spice – adds a whole extra level of spicy goodness to these Carrot Cake muffins. 1 teaspoon will round out that cinnamon flavour and add beautiful complexity to these sweet treats.
• Raw brown sugar – Brown sugar brings a lovely hint of caramel to these Carrot Cake muffins. All I had on hand was raw brown sugar, but soft dark brown sugar would work equally as well, if not better.
• Vanilla Essence – enhances the caramel flavour and makes these muffins taste extra delicious.
• Eggs – 2 eggs will ensure the muffins are light and spongy. The protein in the eggs strengthens the batter and gives it that lovely buoyancy.
• Sourdough discard – Muffins are a great way to use up sourdough discard when you are wanting to feed your sourdough starter. This Carrot Cake Muffin recipe uses 1/2 a cup of sourdough discard, which makes for a decent feeding.
• Oil – Only a quarter of a cup of oil will provide that fat to keep these muffins soft and moist. Because the recipe uses oil, and not butter, these muffins will not dry out so can be stored in the fridge.
• Carrots – the carrots need to be finely grated so that they are imperceptible in the baked muffin. 200g of carrots works out to about 2 1/2 medium sized carrots.

Sourdough Discard Carrot Cake Muffins Cooking Instructions

These Sourdough Discard Carrot Cake Muffins are super quick and easy to whip up. If you wanted to ferment the batter for easier digestion, mix up the batter the night before, leave covered overnight on the counter, add the baking soda the next day and bake. Just be really careful not to beat the air out when adding the baking soda!

• Preheat the oven to 190 degrees Celsius, and line a muffin pan with 12 liners.
• Sift the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and mixed spice into a large bowl.
• Add the raw sugar, and stir with a fork to combine.In a separate bowl, beat the eggs, sourdough discard, and oil together until smooth.
• Add the grated carrot to the liquid mixture and stir until thoroughly coated.
• Add the liquid ingredients to the dry ingredients and carefully mix until all the flour is dampened. Take care not to over mix!
• Divide the mixture between the 12 muffin pans, and pop into the preheated oven.
• Bake for 15 minutes or until the muffin springs back when lightly pressed.

General Tips and Tricks for Making Muffins

Sifting the dry ingredients really does make a difference to the final muffin. To make these Sourdough Carrot Cake Muffins light and airy, taking the time to sift will give you the best results. If you don’t have a sieve, whisking the dry ingredients in the bowl with a dry whisk or fork will help a lot.

For muffins, it is best to mix the dry ingredients separately from wet ingredients. Once these separate mixtures have been thoroughly combined, you then add the liquid to the dry. This is to help you to fold them together with as little mixing as possible. An over-worked muffin batter will lose air and become tough and unpleasant.

On this line, try to handle the mixture as little as possible. When spooning into muffin trays, let the mixture mound naturally – avoid smoothing or interfering with it’s surface. We want to retain the air so the muffins are light and fluffy.

The muffins are ready when the centre springs back when pressed. If this is hard to gauge, use a skewer. Push it into the centre of the muffin. If it comes out clean, the muffins are ready. If not, then keep your eye on them. There should only be a couple of minutes between slightly under-baked till ready.

Save your sanity and use paper or re-usable muffin tray liners. There is nothing worse than greasing muffin trays, not to mention getting them out after baking! Muffin tray liners help to make the whole baking (and cleaning!) process quick and easy.

Serving and Storage Suggestions:

These Sourdough Carrot Cake Muffins are best served warm, soon after baking. Muffins can decline quite rapidly after 24 hours, so I would recommend freezing and then heating in a microwave as and when you are craving this sweet snack!

These muffins would make a great party food snack. Instead of regular-sized muffin pans, use a mini muffin tray to make dinky, bite-sized canapes that everyone will love! Ice them with a luscious cream cheese icing and they will make a dainty delight!

They will keep in the freezer for months, in an airtight container for up to four days.