I love a good challenge! And what a fun challenge this was. Do your remember the show, “Sugar” hosted by Anna Olson? Well, it was an awesome show and I’m a HUGE fan of Anna Olson.
She’s not only an incredible baker, she’s Canadian too! And for a while, she ran a monthly bake-off challenge where she’d pick one of her recipes and invite you to recreate it, with your own twist. This particular challenge involved her Jam filled Doughnut Muffins. At the time, I had never even heard of a doughnut muffin, much less made one. I was intrigued…
This Glazed Carrot Cake Doughnut Muffin was the delicious result of that bake-off challenge!
Doughnut Muffins
I actually created these doughnut muffins a few years ago, around the time my Mom and Grandma were coming to town for a visit from Winnipeg. It was close to Mother’s day so I decided to have an early celebration. My Mom’s fave muffin is carrot and my Grandma loves marmalade, which also goes so well with carrot (although I’ve made this with peach jam and apricot jam as well – peach being my fave). So I put the two together with Mascarpone cheese in the filling, an orange mocha glaze and candied carrots and VOILA! Deliciousness ensued…..
Gourmet Muffins
Although this donut muffin is as easy to make as any muffin, it’s not your typical muffin. Therefore, I’m going to go as far as to give it the label “gourmet muffin” because it’s fancier than your average muffin or doughnut. However, it’s still not too fancy for a regular breakfast or brunch potluck and it’s easy to make. But if you want to bring something a little more elegant, that looks super yummy, it really is the PERFECT sweet treat for any breakfast or brunch potluck. In fact, I recently brought these carrot cake muffins to a breakfast potluck and I think it was the candied carrot topping that won everyone over. My husband actually couldn’t get past the fact that I turned carrots into candy. He thinks it’s my new super power 🙂
Carrot Cake Muffins
The best part is that these carrot cake muffins, with jam Mascarpone filling, orange mocha glaze and candied carrots, are part doughnut, muffin and taste like carrot cake! You can’t go wrong with that combo. So, if you are looking for muffin ideas that are a little fancier than the usual and you LUV carrot muffins, carrot cake and donuts (and who doesn’t?!), this carrot doughnut muffin is for you!
And if you love carrots in your baking, then give my other carrot baking recipes a try:
My Amazon Recommendations (affiliate links)
Carrot Cake Doughnut Muffins with Mascarpone Jam Filling, Orange Mocha Glaze & Candied Carrots
Ingredients
Muffins:
- 1 ½ cups 1% milk
- 1 ½ cups sugar
- ⅔ cup vegetable oil
- 1 ½  cups shredded carrots
- 2 large eggs
- 2 teaspoons vanilla
- 3 ½ cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Filling:
- ½ cup marmalade or apricot or peach jam
- 1 tbsp mascarpone cheese
- ½  tsp cinnamon
Orange glaze:
- 1 ¼  cup confectioners’ sugar sifted
- ⅓ cup walnuts finely chopped
- 2 tbsp freshly squeezed orange juice * can substitute any orange juice
- 1 tbsp brewed vanilla coffee * can substitute regular coffee with ½ tsp vanilla
Candied carrots:
- See Candied Carrots recipe: https://foodmeanderings.com/candied-carrots/
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350F (175C) and grease 2 muffins tins (or line 18 of the cups with paper liners) * I used the black & white damask cupcake liners as shown in post (above recipe)
- In a large mixing bowl, whisk the milk, sugar, oil, eggs and vanilla until blended. Add in shredded carrots. In a separate bowl, sift the flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and then add this to the wet mixture, stirring just until blended (a few lumps are okay).
Filling:
- Fill 18 muffin tin cups ⅔ full with the batter. Stir the jam, mascarpone and cinnamon together and drop a teaspoonful into each of the muffins. Scoop the remaining batter over top so that it covers the filling completely. Bake the muffins for about 30 minutes, until a tester inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean.
- Allow the muffins to cool for 20 minutes, before turning out to cool completely.
Orange Mocha Glaze:
- For the topping, whisk the ingredients together and spoon onto muffins, dividing evenly between all the muffin doughnuts.
Candied Carrots Topping:
- See Candied Carrots recipe: https://foodmeanderings.com/candied-carrots/
- Add candied carrots to top of muffin doughnuts, dividing evenly between all of them. Serve.
Notes
Nutrition
This recipe is part of The Country Cook’s Weekend Potluck
Like you, I like a good challenge sometimes too (just not at 5 p.m. !) This is a stunning creation!
Thank you, Elaine! Yeah, I hate challenges at 5 pm too! It wasn’t rushed- just nice and relaxing ?
Carrot cake is absolutely my favourite dessert, and this recipe would not disappoint! There’s so much going on and it all sounds so delicious! Pinning to drool over later!
Thanks, Leanne! I love carrot cake too and the fact that my Mom loves it as well was very convenient 🙂