a Madison YUMMY!

Yesterday as I was checking out the other posts in Foodie Friday, I came across this post from The Bloom Girls. It featured a video segement a la "cooking show" with the lovely Madison Grace, a 4 year old baker. Let me just say, it was the most entertaining 4 minutes and 42 seconds of video, I have watched in a long time. It brought back such wonderful memories of the late 80's when my sister lived in Japan and we would send her home videos to keep in touch. My daughter, Jayme, and niece, Ashley, who were just a little older than Madison would make cooking videos to send. Yesterday, Madison showed us how to make carrot muffins with cream cheese filling...even without Madison's recommendation that with a glass of milk they were YUMMY, I knew would have to try them.

Let me just say...these are the BEST!

I opted for coffee with milk rather than a glass of milk but it was a perfect breakfast. Oh, what a beautiful morning...

oops, as my cup says...Oh, what a birdiful morning...
he does have a carrot colored background ;)

Recipe from Karyn at the Bloom Girls

Carrot Muffins with Cream Cheese Filling - Makes 12 Muffins

Batter:
1/3 cup softened butter
1/2 cup brown sugar (compressed down into the cup)
2 eggs
1/2 cup evaporated milk
2 1/2 tablespoons orange juice
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour (you can subsitute, whole wheat or organic)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 1/4 cup shredded carrots
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1/2 cup walnuts (optional)

Filling:
4 ounces softened cream cheese
2 tablespoons of sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons grated orange peel

Directions:

Mix together filling ingredients (cream cheese, sugar and orange peel) until well blended, set aside

In a different bowl, cream butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy with mixer. Add milk, orange juice and eggs until well mixed. Combine flour, baking soda, baking powder and cinnomen and stir into creamed mixture until moist. Stir in carrots, dried cranberries and walnuts (if including)

Using paper lined cupcake pan, fill each liner 1/3 full of carrot batter mixture, then add about 2 tablespoons of cream cheese filling and then another 1/3 of carrot batter mixture. Bake at 350 for 25 minutes. Test with a wooden toothpick to ensure they are done. (the toothpick should come out with tiny crumbs or no uncooked batter) Cool for 5 minutes then remove from pan to wire rack to continue cooling. Store these in the fridge!

My Notes: I didn't have dried cranberries in the house so I omitted them and we love pecans so I used pecans instead of walnuts. We'll be making these again and again!

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