Cannellette

I read about these in the cooking section of the newspaper and thought this would be a great way to make my boyfriend understand my love for carrotcake and spicy cakes. This recipe makes lovely moist muffins. These would have been great for Valentine’s Day. All credit goes to Roos Ouwehand in NRC next.

12 cardemom pods

300 gr flour

225 gr brown sugar

a pinch of salt

2 teaspoons of baking powder

1,5 teaspoon cinnamon

nutmeg

1 orange

240 ml peanut oil

3 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

100 gr dried grated coconut (dessicated coconut)

300 gr carrots

cream cheese

icing sugar

Cook the carrots for a tad too long and puree them in the blender. Crush the cardemom pods and put the seeds in a bowl. Sieve the flour, sugar and bakingpowder over the seeds and add some orange zest, the spices and a pinch of salt. Make a well and crack the eggs in and add the vanilla essence and the oil. Stir everything well (Lorraine Pascale taught me that a good muffin only needs 8 stirs, so use this wisdom as you please) and stir the carrot and coconut in. Gently fill your muffin tray or paper forms with this mixture (trial and error taught me you can fill them to the brim - no need to only fill them for 2/3 as you do with normal muffins, these won’t rise as much anyways). Bake the muffins for 20 minutes in an oven preheated to 180 degrees. 

For the icing: mix the icing sugar with the cream cheese and spread on the cooled muffins.