Carrot-Orange Muffins with Candied Ginger

There's a bakery in SE Portland called Tabor Bread that is definitely worth a visit if you're ever in the neighborhood. They mill their own flour and have wood-fired ovens and do lots of lovely nice things like leave extra bread outside on Sundays with a little box for donations. But my favorite thing about Tabor Bread are their muffins. Let me clarify: a muffin is not a cupcake. It does not need frosting. It isn't supposed to be a sugar bomb. The muffins at Tabor Bread are hearty, wholesome and not-too-sweet; precisely the kind of thing you need for a 5 a.m. airport run. I kept the Tabor Bread ethos in mind as I developed the recipe for these lovely little muffins; keeping them chock full of orange, carrot and little explosions of candied ginger rather than sugar.

The idea for these muffins was conceived after my mom sent me a gloating photograph of my dad holding this year's crop of carrots from our garden. She mentioned how great their fresh-squeezed carrot juice was and it reminded me how much I love the combination of carrot and orange juice. (Not to keep name-dropping, but if you're ever in Prague there's a vegetarian restaurant called Clear Head that has amazing quasi-quesadillas and carrot orange juice. If you've been eating nothing but fried cheese and goulash for two months, let me tell you, it's like life's blood back in your system.) Anyway, I wanted to capture the beautiful marriage of carrot and orange in a comforting muffin; just to spice things up a bit I came up with the idea of introducing a bit of zesty, poppy candied ginger on top.

One of the biggest bits of fun with this particular recipe was the prospect of making the candied ginger. I'd never candied ginger before, but I followed Alton Brown's recipe and even though I was making far less than 1 pound of candied ginger, I guesstimated and everything came out fine. Essentially, you boil thinly sliced ginger then introduce some sugar to make a simple syrup and then keep cooking until the water evaporates and the sugar re-crystallizes. Easy and as long as you keep an eye on it and keep the heat low there won't be any problems. I promise. PLUS you get the bragging rights of being able to say you've made candied ginger.

The trick with muffins is to keep them from becoming too dense and heavy; this translated into not overmixing and using buttermilk. Luckily, these came out super light, moist and barely sweet; they taste much more rich than they actually are. I pulled out my mom's old trick and replaced half the butter with applesauce. I also pureed some carrot in with the buttermilk to really infuse it with some more carrot flavor. Throw in some zest and BOOM! Muffin time.

Carrot-Orange Muffins with Candied Ginger
(makes roughly 14 muffins)

2 1/2 cups flour
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2/3 cup sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
4 T butter
4 T applesauce
1 cup grated carrot, divided into two 1/2 cups
1 cup buttermilk
zest of 1 orange
1/2 cup candied ginger

Make candied ginger ahead of time to allow time for cooling. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Puree 1/2 cup grated carrot with buttermilk, set aside in a large measuring cup or bowl. Sift together flour, baking powder and salt. In a separate bowl, cream butter and sugar, then beat in egg and vanilla.

Make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients, and using a rubber spatula spoon in sugar/butter mix, then pour carrot buttermilk over it. Fold together until just beginning to mix; add orange zest, remaining 1/2 cup carrot, applesauce and 1/4 cup candied ginger, continue folding until just mixed together. Spoon into muffin cups placed in muffin tin, sprinkle remaining 1/4 cup candied ginger over the top of the muffins. Bake in the oven for 30-35 minutes until a clean knife comes out free of batter. Let cool, eat and enjoy!