Moist Carrot Cake Pineapple Muffins are everything you love about carrot cake—packed into a handheld treat that’s irresistibly easy to make. They’re tender and bursting with flavor in each bite thanks to sweet grated carrots, juicy crushed pineapple, chunky pecans, rich brown sugar and a cozy hint of cinnamon. Share warm, or top with a swirl of lemon cream cheese frosting to transform them into delightful pineapple carrot cake cupcakes. This recipe is vegetarian and dairy free.
Moist Carrot Pineapple Muffins Highlights
Although you’ll never see me pass up a tasty Single Layer Carrot Cake or Carrot Cake Bread, I love a good portable snack and one that’s easily shareable. Carrot season is the time to whip up this delicious carrot cake muffins recipe. They’re moist, fluffy, lightly sweetened and with a hint of vanilla and cinnamon.
They’re versatile too as a stand alone muffin, or cupcake slathered with Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting.
This Recipe Is:
- lightly sweetened
- fluffy and tender
- share as a muffin or cupcake
If you love homemade muffin recipes, these carrot muffins with pineapple are a must make!
About the Key Ingredients
- Unbleached All Purpose Flour – for a tender crumb, yet sturdy enough to stand up to all the inclusions. For carrot pineapple muffins with whole wheat flour you can substitute all purpose flour for white whole wheat flour 1:1 with similar results.
- Brown Sugar – for an extra moist carrot cake and rich flavor, it complements the carrots and pineapple beautifully. You can use light or dark brown sugar in this recipe. Dark brown sugar provides a bit more lift to these muffins than light brown sugar, and also offers a richer, more complex flavor.
- Vegetable Oil – you can use coconut oil or canola oil. If using solid coconut oil, make sure it’s melted and warm to the touch just before mixing the ingredients. You’ll notice the batter will stiffen slightly as all the ingredients are mixed. As the coconut oil cools, it solidifies, so the batter becomes stiff and heavy. Canola is liquid at room temperature so it produces a looser batter.
- Carrots – shred on the fine grater setting of a food processor or the small grating side of a box grater. They add moisture, color and flavor.
- Nuts – toasted walnuts or pecans can be included, chopped fine. They add texture and earthy flavor. Pecans are pictured here.
- Pineapple – we’re using crushed canned pineapple, and throughly drained. Save the juice for drinking or in smoothies. Pineapple helps make super moist pineapple carrot muffins!
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How to Make Fluffy Carrot Cake Pineapple Muffins
step by step
Tip: I recommend freshly grated carrots, since prepared store bought are often dry.
Fine Grated vs Course Grated Carrots
Finely grated carrots are a go-to for carrot muffins and carrot cake. Compared to their coarsely grated counterpart, finely grated carrots help distribute their flavor, moisture and texture evenly throughout the muffin.
Being finely shredded, their texture is almost undetectable, where as coarsely grated carrots are more noticeable.
To achieve a fine grate, use the fine grater on a box grater, or in a food processor.
Knowing the temperature of your oven is key for best baking outcome. Use an external oven thermometer (dial or digital) to know its true temperature and adjust as needed.
Traci’s Tips
- Muffin Rest: Resting the batter 10-15 minutes helps hydrate the flour and helps create a lofty muffin. It’s worth the wait, but resting can be skipped if needed.
- Muffin Pans: if you have two muffin pans, use them, alternating muffin cups so that every other cup is empty. This helps all the muffins rise more evenly, with a domed top. Baked in one pan, the center muffins don’t quite rise as high as the outer muffins.
- Kitchen Tools: I recommend a external oven thermometer and weighing your ingredients using a digital kitchen scale for the best outcome (affiliate links).
Moist Carrot Cake Muffins with Pineapple
Ingredients
- 1 cup (100 grams) Pecans
- 1 1/4 cup + 1 tablespoon (180 grams) Unbleached All Purpose Flour
- 1/2 teaspoon Fine Sea Salt
- 1 teaspoon Baking Powder, non aluminum
- 3/4 teaspoon Baking Soda
- 1 teaspoon Ground Cinnamon
- 1/3 cup (65 grams) Dark Brown Sugar, packed or sub light brown sugar
- 1/3 cup (75 grams) Organic Cane Sugar
- 2 Eggs, large, room temperature
- 3/4 cup (150 grams) Coconut Oil, melted, warm to the touch (I use unrefined), or other neutral veg oil
- 2 teaspoons Vanilla Extract
- 3/4 cup (190 grams) Crushed Pineapple, drained, pressed through a fine mesh strainer, a little under one 14 ounce can
- 1 1/4 cups (160 grams) Finely Grated Carrots, packed, about 3 medium carrots (224 grams / 8 ounces with tops trimmed)
Instructions
Get Ready:
- Preheat the oven to 400 Fahrenheit (205 Celsius) and set oven rack in the center. Line a standard muffin pan with 12 tulip style muffin cups or DIY. Tip: if you have two muffin pans, use both, leaving every other cup empty. This helps all the muffins rise to their full potential and helps create a nice dome.
Toast the Pecans
- Place the pecans in a pan and set them on the center rack in your just turned on pre-heating oven. They'll toast for 10-12 minutes while the oven is heating (keep an eye on the pecans since they're especially sensitive to heat and because ovens vary in how fast they pre-heat). The pecans are done when lightly toasted and fragrant. Transfer toasted pecans to a board and finely chop once cooled. Set aside.
Make the Muffin Batter
- In a medium bowl, whisk the flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder and cinnamon. Set aside.
- In a large mixing bowl, beat eggs, brown sugar, cane sugar, melted (and warm) coconut oil, and vanilla. Whisk until emulsified. Whisk in the pineapple.
- Pour the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients all at once, fold just until no white flour patches remain. Fold in the carrots and pecans. Stir gently just until the ingredients are evenly distributed. The batter will be thick. Optionally rest the batter for 10 minutes before scooping (this aids in a taller rise).
- Scoop an overfilled large cookie scoop (#20) or about 1/4 cup each with batter and transfer to the muffin liners. Distribute leftover batter evenly among cups.
Bake!
- Place the muffins in the oven and reduce the oven temperature to 375 Fahrenheit (190 Celsius). Bake for 18-23 minutes. Once a toothpick comes out clean with a few crumbs attached, the muffins are ready.
- Remove the muffins from the pan, transferring them to a cooling rack. Cool for at least 30 minutes before enjoying. Once completely cool, cover for up to four days at room temperature. To Freeze: Place individual muffins on a parchment lined sheet pan and freeze. Once frozen, transfer to a lidded container for up to two weeks. Thaw at room temperature.To Rewarm: rewarm muffins in a 350F oven for 8-10 minutes.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition is provided as a courtesy and is an estimate. If this information is important to you, please have it verified independently.
Made it? Leave a comment below!
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Really tasty moist muffins. My mix was fairly runny but perhaps because I didn’t drain the pineapple well. It worked out anyway.
Thank you for your note, Nancy! SO glad the muffins still worked even with a runny mix!
I made this recipe and we loved these muffins I used walnuts instead of pecans that’s what I had in hand
Hi Martina! Thank you so much for your note and five star rating. Walnuts are a delicious sub! SO happy y’all enjoyed the muffins.