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Carrot Cake Muffins with Maple Icing + 5 Muffin Recipes for Spring!

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Tess had just finished feeding her cat when a familiar face appeared in the window of the old wooden door that had kept her safe inside her home and the world safely outside for so many decades.  The face was framed by the molding on the door her father installed when she was a child, and backlit by the sun, making it hard for Tess to discern who was outside looking in.  Dark eyes, thick, unkempt eyebrows, long, messy hair pulled away from a woman’s face was all she could make out.

The face watched her. Tess hated being observed by anyone, especially by someone she couldn’t place in time, though certainly, this familiar face had existed in one moment or more, in one place or many, together they had gazed at each other briefly or for many hours. Tess now forgot.  She hated the forgetting that came with age, and even more, she detested unannounced visits.

A worried face, much like her own, and yet, she couldn’t place it. Was she hallucinating…again? And if she was? Good, Tess thought.  It was time for this miserable process of dying to get on with it.  The waiting had become unbearable, leaving her restless and angry.  Angry with cancer that took its time eating away at her; angry with her dead husband, envious of fast-moving cancer that took him away many years ago leaving her to deal with this alone, and angry with her remaining family for their visits and calls.  Their concern felt half-hearted, as she knew, as the almost dead do, the living just want you to go.  They are waiting, anticipating the tsunami of grief.  And like Tess, they wanted to get on with it.

If Tess were a dog, she would have walked to the woods that surrounded the back of her property, curled up on a pile of dead brown leaves under the black maple tree and stare at the bluebird sky.  Alone, free, ready.  Why is it so damn hard to die?  Tess thought as she reached for the doorknob.  She figured she would let the face in, see what she wanted.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, Mom! I’m freezing out here.”

“Come in, come in.  Watch out for the cat.” Tess said.

“It’s time to put that cat down, Mom.”

“Like, hell.  When I’m gone, do what you want with it.”

Her daughter was back again, this time with muffins.  Carrot muffins.  Muffins Tess would thank her for, but not eat because eating did not make much sense anymore.  She never cared much for carrot muffins anyway.  Tess would keep this to herself.  The last thing she wanted was for daughter to feel useless.  And she certainly didn’t want another visit from the hospice nurse, poking at her or asking her stupid questions.  How are you feeling today? Are you in pain? On a scale of 1 to 10, one being no pain and ten being the worst pain where do say you are?  Assholes.  All of them.  I’m dying and I just want to forget it.  

Tess moved slowly to her favorite chair and sat down, grateful to be off her feet.  The walk to the door felt like a mile.  Her daughter sat in the chair next to her and grimaced when the matted cat jumped into Tess’ lap.

“I know he is pretty sad lookin’,”  Tess said.

Her daughter smiled, let out a small laugh.  Tess had forgotten her face at the door, misplaced it in time, let it dissipate from her memory in just a matter of days.  It must be part of the dying process, Tess thought.  How could she leave while still holding on so tightly?  Damn near impossible.  Tess loved her daughter’s smile, knowing laugh, dark eyes.  She was a good girl, always had been.  She would miss her.  Tess couldn’t say that about many people.

Tess’ eyes felt heavy.  “I’m so tired.”

“Rest, Mom.  I’ll stay for a while.  I need to pick up the kids in a couple of hours.”

As Tess dozed off, she watched her daughter holding on tightly to her little computer, tapping away a message to the outside world, a message to the rest of Tess’ family.  Soon Tess would be gone and maybe before she left, Tess would take a bite of the muffin.

Carrot Cake Muffins with Maple Icing

recipe adapted from My Recipes

makes 12 muffins

Ingredients for muffins:

2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

3/4 cup sugar

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1/4 cup vegetable oil

2 large eggs

2 egg whites

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 teaspoon maple extract

3 medium rainbow carrots or regular carrots, finely grated, about 2 cups

1/2 cup of golden raisins optional

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350F.  Line a muffin pan with cupcake liners.  Lightly coat muffin pan with cooking spray.

In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and salt.   Make a well in the center of the dry mixture.  In a separate bowl, whisk together oil, eggs, egg whites, extracts and grated carrots.  Add wet mixture to dry mixture.  Stir until just combined. Do not overmix!

Spoon batter into baking cups, about 3/4 of the way full.  Bake until a cake tester inserted in the middle comes out clean, about 22 to 25 minutes.  Be sure to check the muffins at 22 minutes.  You do not want to over bake them.

Remove muffins from pan and allow to cool on a wire rack.  Spoon icing over muffins and serve.  Muffins taste best slightly warm the day they are made but will taste great for breakfast the next day as well.  Store at room temperature in an air-tight container.  Enjoy!

Maple Icing

Ingredients:

1 cup confectioners’ sugar

1 tablespoon maple syrup

1 or 2 tablespoons of milk, any kind

Directions:

Whisk together confectioners’ sugar and maple syrup.  Add 1 tablespoon of milk and whisk.  Add more milk to reach desired consistency.  Spoon icing over muffins.  Enjoy!

5 Spring Muffin Links

If you love berries in your muffins check out Baker’s Royale strawberry muffins recipe and Diethood’s raspberry muffins recipe.

Looking for a gluten-free muffin option for your next spring brunch?  Head to Dolly + Oatmeal for Lindsay’s strawberry, oat, cacao muffin recipe.

Chocolate muffins are always a good idea. Head to A Brown Table for a sea salt chocolate muffin recipe that is sure to make you smile.

Do you remember the department store, Jordan Marsh?  Me too.  I spent many weekends tagging along with my grandmother to Jordan Marsh, but I never did try their blueberry muffins.  NYT Cooking has the recipe for you.  Check it out!

Snowflake Sandwich Cookies with Maple Buttercream Filling + 5 Fun Holiday Cookie Links

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If Tess had known she would think of him as often as she did during her final days she may have made different choices many decades ago.  If she knew he would appear in her dreams, nightly, standing in the sunlight on a pathless mountainside under a blue sky while she struggled, step by step, over rocks and snow to reach him…she may have never said hello.  And yet so many years ago, she initiated a simple conversation without fully releasing she also made a choice to make a space for this strange man in her mind and heart.

Tess entered his life and he her’s, grateful for a providential connection.  She loved this man as she did her husband without ever really, fully knowing him.

[Boundaries remained intact.  Years later when middle age became old age, gray hair to white hair, wrinkles abundant, widowed, and often alone, but seldom unhappy, she smiled when she thought of him.  And when they ran into each other coming out of the library, both carrying a stack of large print books to occupy the endless quiet hours’ widowhood afforded them, Tess felt her fingertips tingle, and her eyes moisten.  How lucky after all these years that the connection she felt to this man remained intact!]

A nameless night later Tess finds herself awake at 4AM.   She carefully tiptoes through the house, her cotton nightgown grazes the hardwood floors and catches a white hair or two on its hem.  She pauses by the large window and watches the snowflakes falling outside.  Some stick to the window screen, others dance and swirl around each other, as if, communicating a long forgotten fable.  She opens the window.  The wooden frame slides up without much effort, odd, Tess thinks for such an old house.  She pops out the window screen and leans through the opening into the cold night air, her breath mingling with the snowflakes.  Tess sees the strange man she loved all these years standing at the end of the driveway next to the lamppost covered in boxwood and tiny white lights.  She gladly waves to him.  He waves back and turns away from her.  Wait! Tess calls.  Wait!

“Mom?”  Tess remains centered in the open window, her nightgown outlined in the moonlight, her wrinkled body shivering in the frigid wind.

“Mom?”  She turns to the familiar voice she cannot place.  [Time moves in a way Tess no longer understands.  People, too.  Once gone, now reappear.  Once an empty house, now her daughter is here.]

“Time to go back to bed, Mom.”  Tess’ daughter closes the window quickly, frustrated by her mother’s nightly wanderings, and guides her back to bed.  She tucks Tess into bed as she does her own children, brushes Tess’ long white hair away from her face and kisses her forehead.  Tess does not share with her daughter who she saw standing at the end of the driveway.   She would seem crazy after all.

Minutes later, Tess falls into a deep sleep only to find herself on a sunlit mountainside next to a man she barely knew but loved just the same.

 

Snowflake Sandwich Cookies with Maple Buttercream Filling

Recipe adapted from Bake From Scratch Holiday Cookies Edition

makes about 24 sandwich cookies

Ingredients for cookie dough:

3/4 unsalted butter, at room temperature

3/4 cup vanilla sugar

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1 large egg, at room temperature

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 cups all-purpose, unbleached flour

sanding sugar or nonpareils for decorating

Directions:

Using a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, on medium speed beat the butter, sugar and salt until creamy, about 5 minutes.  Be sure to stop the mixer and scrape the bottom and sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula.  Add the egg and vanilla.  Continue to beat until incorporated.  Reduce the speed to low and slowly add the flour.

Divide the dough in half.  Wrap each piece of dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 3 hours or overnight.

When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350F.  Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper and set aside.  Lightly flour a clean surface, remove dough from plastic wrap.  Roll the dough to 1/8 inch thickness.  (Be sure to leave other half of dough in the refrigerator until ready to use!)  Using a 3-inch snowflake cookie cutter dipped in flour, begin cutting out snowflake shapes.  Gather scraps,  reroll and cut again.  Place cookies about an inch apart on the prepared baking sheet.   Bake until golden brown around the edges, about 10 minutes.  Transfer to a wire rack and cool completely.

Maple Buttercream Filling

Recipe adapted from Bake From Scratch Holiday Cookies Edition

makes 2 cups

Ingredients:

1 cup or 2 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 teaspoon maple extract

3 cups confectioners’ sugar

pinch of kosher salt

Directions:

Using a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment beat the butter and maple extract until creamy.  Add the confectioners’ sugar and a pinch of salt.  Beat on medium speed until well combined and smooth.  Once the confectioners’ sugar is incorporated, increase speed to high and beat for another 5 minutes.   Set aside.

Assembly Time!

Spoon half of the maple buttercream filling into large pastry bag fitted with an open star pastry tip.  Pipe filling onto 1 cookie, starting at the tip of each snowflake point and moving to the center.  Place another cookie on top of the cookie with the filling and press gently until the cookies form a sandwich.  Repeat with remaining cookies.  Place the remaining filling in a large pastry bag fitted with a small decorating tip.  Decorate the cookies with the remaining filling making a snowflake pattern on one side of the sandwich.  Sprinkle with white sanding sugar or nonpareils.   Let the cookies set before stacking.  Store cookies in an air-tight container for up to 4 days.  Enjoy!

5 Fun Holiday Cookie Links

My grandmother always had a stash of Italian Rainbow cookies floating around her house during the holidays and I couldn’t eat them fast enough.  Check out Love and Olive Oil’s  modern take on these beloved cookies.

Salted caramel and dark chocolate is a perfect pairing.  Want it in cookie form?  Head to Sally’s Baking Addiction for the recipe.

Love a good shortbread cookie?  Head to Cooking Classy for a chocolate dipped toffee pecan shortbread cookie recipe.  My mouth is watering!

Add something new to your holiday cookie platter with my alfajores recipe.

This lemon cookie recipe is one of my most pinned recipes.  Check it out!