Ask a Chef reveals the secrets of those superb dishes you ate in cafes and restaurants and wanted to try making.
Cinnamon Cafe's carrot muffins
Makes 6-8 very large muffins
3 cups flour
5 tsp baking powder
1 cup sugar
3 tsp cinnamon
½ cup pineapple (fresh or tinned chunks or 1 grated apple)
2 large carrots, grated
2 eggs
½ cup oil
1 cup orange juice
1 tsp baking soda (dissolved in the orange juice)
Cream cheese icing
2-3 Tbsp cream cheese
1½ cups icing sugar
squeeze of lemon juice (optional)
Method
Mix the flour, baking powder, sugar and cinnamon. Add the wet ingredients and stir together just enough to mix. The mixture should be slightly wet. Bake in muffin tins lined with baking paper for 25-35 minutes, depending on size, at 180degC.
Mix the icing ingredients into a smooth paste.
Optional:
Walnuts or raisins or dried apricots can be added to the muffin mix.
For slightly more texture, replace ½ cup of the flour with ½ cup coconut
Requested by Bonnie Conner of Dunedin.
Recipe supplied by Cinnamon Cafe, St Andrew St, Dunedin.
• If you have enjoyed a dish in an Otago cafe or restaurant and would like the recipe, write to Ask a Chef, Features, Otago Daily Times, PO Box 181, Dunedin, fax 474-7422, or email odt.features@odt.co.nz, including your name, address and a daytime telephone number, and we will request it.
