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Carrot muffins carry a surprise dollop of marmalade

Recipe: Lemon or orange, these are delicious

Sacramento Digs Gardening
BY Kathy Morrison PUBLISHED MAY 3, 2026

Marmalade is the surprise inside these healthy, not-too-sweet carrot muffins. Use orange or lemon marmalade and the baking spice of your choice. Add raisins or nuts, too, if desired. Kathy Morrison

The long run of carrot cake loaded with sugar and topped with cream cheese icing in the 1970s and '80s put me off baking with carrots for many years. (Full disclosure: My wedding cake was carrot chiffon. You can guess how long ago that was.)

A healthy muffin in the making. There are two carrots
here, but I wound up grating three.

But this little muffin recipe popped up on the New York Times cooking site, and I was intrigued. I had made marmalade in January from ripe limes and Meyer lemons (from a recipe we first ran in 2023), and I still had some hanging around. Time to put carrots back in the spotlight.

The recipe can go the orange route or lemon, and I chose the latter, pairing the lemon zest in the batter with ground ginger. Cinnamon or cardamom also are possibilities. An extra bit of cinnamon boosts the spiciness, too.

Because of the whole wheat flour in these, they don't bake up tall, but they're not dense, either. A nice balance for any morning or a snack with tea.

Carrot muffins with marmalade

Adapted from NYT Cooking

Makes 12

Ingredients:

3/4 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 cup old-fashioned oats

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

Carrot shreds — Finely grated carrots will mix well
into the muffins.

1 teaspoon ground ginger (or cinnamon or cardamom)

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon (in addition to above if using cinnamon)

1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt

1/2 cup plain whole milk Greek yogurt

2 large eggs

1/2 cup neutral oil, such as grapeseed or avocado

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

1 teaspoon or more finely grated lemon or orange zest

1 packed cup finely grated carrot (3 carrots)

1/4 to 1/2 cup marmalade of your choice

Optional mix-in: 3/4 cup chopped raisins or nuts

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Grease a 12-cup muffin pan with oil spray or butter.

Whisk together the flours, oats, baking powder, baking soda, ginger or whatever spice is chosen, and salt in a large howl.

Each muffin gets a heaping teaspoon
of marmalade.

In a medium bowl, stir together the yogurt, eggs, oil, brown sugar and lemon or orange zest until smooth. Gently stir in the grated carrots, and any mix-ins you may want to use.

Fold the wet ingredients into the flour mixture just until no streaks of flour are visible.

Spoon batter into the prepared muffins cups, using about two-thirds of the batter. Place a heaping teaspoon of marmalade onto each cup, nestling it slightly into the batter.

Cover the marmalade with the remaining batter.

Bake muffins for 5 minutes at 425 degrees, the reduce the oven temperature to 350 degrees, and continue baking for 13 to 15 minutes. Muffins are ready when the top springs back when lightly pressed.

Remove the pan to a wire rack. Allow muffins to cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then remove them from the cups. Serve warm or at room tempeature. The muffins will keep at room temperature for 24 hours; refrigerate or freeze leftovers.

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RECIPE

A recipe for preparing delicious meals from the bounty of the garden.

Keywords:

recipe recipes carrots marmalade citrus baking breakfast snack May spring Sacramento gardening

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Garden checklist for week of July 26

Get fertilization and other garden chores done early in the week before those triple-digit temperatures arrive.

* Keep your vegetable garden watered, mulched and weeded. Water before 8 a.m. to reduce the chance of fungal infection and to conserve moisture.

* Water, then fertilize vegetables and blooming annuals, perennials and shrubs to give them a boost. Feeding flowering plants every other week will extend their bloom.

* Don’t let tomatoes wilt or dry out completely. Give tomatoes a deep watering two to three times a week.

* Harvest vegetables promptly to encourage plants to produce more. Squash especially tends to grow rapidly in hot weather. Keep an eye on zucchini.

* Feed vegetable plants bone meal or other fertilizers high in phosphate to stimulate more blooms and fruiting. Always water plants BEFORE applying fertilizer as well as after.

* Pinch back chrysanthemums for bushy plants and more flowers in September.

* Remove spent flowers from roses, daylilies and other bloomers as they finish flowering.

* Pinch off blooms from basil so the plant will grow bushier, with more leaves.

* Cut back lavender after flowering to promote a second bloom.

* It’s not too late to add a splash of color. Plant petunias, snapdragons, zinnias and marigolds.

* From seed, plant corn, pumpkins, radishes, winter squash and sunflowers.

* If your melons and squash aren’t setting fruit, give the bees a hand. With a small, soft paintbrush, gather some pollen from male flowers, then brush it inside the female flowers, which have a tiny swelling at the base of their petals. (That's the embryo melon or squash.) Within days, that little swelling should start growing.

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