Inside out carrot cake muffins

It has been very busy at work these past few weeks. It was quarter ends, year ends, audits, financials, and everything in between. I work for a very small company, and there is one other person in my department. He was about 100 times more stressed than I was and he was sick on top of it. He made a special request for a carrot cake flavored treat. I secretly did a celebratory jump inside because I had this recipe from King Arthur Flour that I was dying to try but didn't know anyone that enjoyed carrot cake.Both my roommate and boyfriend don't like vegetables in their muffins so these were a treat solely for the office. Its a simple muffin with frosting inside (hence, the inside out name). Approval from all around so far!

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. First, microwave 8 oz cream cheese and stir in 1/4 cup sugar for the filling.

Next, combine all your dry ingredients 

 Whisk together your wet ingredients, and stir them together. Note, you do not need to beat this! Just stir the wet and dry ingredients together until it is combined. Fold in your carrots. I actually coarsely chopped mine rather than shred it and it gives it a nice crunch! 

Then, pour about 1.5 tbs of the carrot cake batter into a muffin cups. Then evenly distribute the filling mixture between the 12 muffins and pour another 1 tbs of the muffin batter on top. Bake for about 20 minutes or when an inserted toothpick comes out clean.

Cream Cheese Filling

one 8oz package of cream cheese

1/2 cup granulated sugar

Muffins

2 1/4 cups of flour

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup light brown sugar, firmly packed

1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

3/4 teaspoon ground ginger

3/4 teaspoon salt

2 large eggs

3/4 cup water

1/3 cup vegetable oil

2 large-medium carrots (shredded or chopped)

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line standard 12 cup muffin pan with liners and grease

2. For the filling. Place the cream cheese in a microwavable safe bowl and heat on low for 40 seconds. Stir in the sugar and set aside.

3. For the muffins: Whisk together all the dry ingredients. 

4. Whisk together eggs water and oil in separate bowl.

5. Combine the wet and dry ingredients

6. Fold in the carrots.

7. Drop about 1-2 tbs of the muffin batter into the liners. Spread to make sure it covers the bottom. 

8. Dollop about 1/12 (1 tbsp) of the filling into the center of the liner on top of the muffin batter.

9. Drop about another tbs of the muffin batter on top.

10. Bake the muffins for about 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the muffin (not filling) comes out clean.