Healthy carrot, date and walnut muffins made with buckwheat flour and flaxseed. Gluten free and dairy free, these are the perfect snack to pop in your lunchbox!
In another attempt to use up everything before I leave London next week, it’s been baking madness at my place again! This time it’s carrot, date and walnut muffins. Courtesy of me having a large amount of medjool dates on hand (leftover from catering), plus a KILO of organic walnuts. Like, really nice walnuts, not cheapie bitter ones! (I’ve also made some big batches of toasted muesli with those, substituting them for the seeds in my Puffed Buckwheat Toasted Muesli recipe.)
These carrot, date and walnut muffins are seriously chock-full of tasty fillings. Every mouthful you’re going to get a sweet hint of chewy caramel from the dates, plus some crunch from the walnuts. It’s super good. So…it’s time to get baking, right?!
The recipe for these muffins is just a simple sweet variation on my Buckwheat, Carrot and Feta Savoury Muffins which I posted on the blog last year. I love making my baked goods out of buckwheat flour, which is high in fibre and produces a nutty, dense bake. It’s one of my favourite staple flours and is a great base for breads, crepes and pancakes too.
Carrot, date and walnut is a classic flavour combo, and works a treat here. But, I know with school lunch boxes, nuts might not be allowed for allergy concerns. If you’d like to make these muffins nut free, simply swap the walnuts for seeds like pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds or a mix. You can also simply leave the walnuts out, if you prefer. I just love some nuts or seeds in there for a bit of crunch!
p.s. In the muffins pictured below I’ve gone all out and iced some of them with a really simple vegan miso date caramel too (you can get the miso caramel recipe here).
Buckwheat Carrot, Date and Walnut Muffins
Ingredients
Muffin Base
- 1 and 1/3 cups buckwheat flour - 185 grams
- 2 tbsp ground flaxseed - 14 grams
- 2 tbsp tapioca flour - 20 grams
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 tsp baking powder (gluten free)
- 1/2 tsp bicarb soda
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 3 eggs
- 1/2 cup rice milk or coconut milk*
- 1 tbsp lemon juice or apple cider vinegar
- 4 tbsp maple syrup - 80 mL
- 3 tbsp coconut oil or olive oil - 60 mL
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
To mix in to the Muffins
- 150 grams carrots - about 2 medium-sized carrots
- 150 grams medjool dates - 8-9 dates
- 125 grams walnuts - about 1 cup measured roughly chopped
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 180 C and prepare a 12 hole muffin tray (I used non-stick silicone liners inside the muffin tray instead of greasing the tray).
- Mix together the rice milk and lemon juice to form a sour "buttermilk." Set aside. Grate the carrots, and roughly chop up the dates and walnuts. Set these aside too.
- Combine the buckwheat flour, flaxseed, tapioca flour, bicarb, baking powder, salt and cinnamon.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together the eggs, olive oil, maple syrup, milk mixture and vanilla.
- Mix the wet ingredient mixture into the dry mixture. Add in the carrots, dates and walnuts as you're stirring it together, and combine until you have a consistent batter.
- Divide the mixture evenly between the muffin holes. Bake for 30-35 minutes, or until the tops are just firm to touch, puffed up in the centre and a deep golden brown.
- Store the muffins in an airtight container at room temperature for 2-3 days, or freeze for a longer life. If you refrigerate them instead, they're nicest heated up in the microwave quickly before eating so they're a little softer.
Notes
I’m new to baking with “different” flours, so was happy to find this very easy to follow recipe. They tasted delicious! Thankful for a healthy and delicious baking treat whilst on a health kick!
I’ve just made these and they are super tasty! I’m trying to minimise gluten but it’s Saturday morning and I wanted a sweet treat – these worked out great! Added bonus of using up a load of ingredients I had at home. I didn’t have tapioca flour or maple syrup, so substituted with almond meal and honey. My muffins were baked perfectly after just 20mins. Crispy on the outside, soft and fluffy on the inside. Delish!
These are super yummy 😊
Aw thanks so much Gail 🙂
This is the second recipe that i am trying from this site. Thank you for the measurements! Very helpful in attaining the desired end result. I baked them them for a full 35 minutes and got muffins crispy on the outside, soft and moist on the inside. Biting into these muffins are so delightfully surprising… sometimes a sweet date mouthful and other times a crunchy nutty mouthful. thank you for sharing
Hi Rochell, thank you for this lovely and very detailed message! I love baking with buckwheat and it’s always nice to hear other people are enjoying it too 🙂
Hi, have you tried a substitute for the eggs? Recipie looks amazing.
Super yummy- fluffy with good exterior crust. Thank you recipe! Notes: I used half buckwheat and half AP gluten-free flour (King Arthur)- also used 1/4 cup whole fat organic yogurt plus 1/4 cup water (instead of milk and lemon juice). Omitted flaxseeds and walnuts, used raisins instead of dates. Only used 2 eggs although they were XL.
This looks really tempting! Just wondered if the tapioca flour can be omitted?
I think these will turn out ok without the tapioca flour, they might be a little more dense but should stick together ok. You could add a little rice flour instead 🙂
I just made these today – I love your recipe. Thank you for sharing 🙂
They were perfectly moist and not too dense, either, in spite of the buckwheat flour. They were just slightly sweet and entirely delicious, a pleasure to eat. Being gluten free and vegetarian make it absolutely perfect, and no one would even know they were “healthy” 😛
Thanks again for sharing, I really enjoyed making and eating these 🙂
Hi Mem, thank you so much for your lovely review! I am always so appreciative when people take the time to leave me feedback. And I’m very happy to hear these muffins turned out well for you! I think the carrot helps to keep these moist and not too gummy and dense – I know using buckwheat flour alone can produce that effect. Thanks again!
Hi, I made these muffins today and im not sure what went wron g but they are super dry? i used coconut oil not olive but still that shouldn’t make that much difference, should it?
Hi Lisa! Oh no, I’m sorry to hear these didn’t turn out as plan. The coconut oil should work, though sometimes I do think olive oil produces a more wet result. Did you weigh the ingredients out or just measure them with a cup/spoon?
Quite often I find with baking recipes you need to weigh the ingredients (well, at least the main ones/ones in big quantities) to get a good result, as it’s more accurate to go by weight and cup measurements can vary greatly when you’re packing flour in.
If you did just measure by cup/spoon, I would suggest either (i) weighing or (ii) simply reducing the amount of flour that you use a little bit e.g. if you measured out 1 and 1/3 cups of buckwheat flour, try again with just 1 cup. If that makes sense! Hope that helps. 🙂
Hi Monique
I have since made them again and weighed the ingredients and they turned out perfectly!
Thanks so much for your reply.:)
Cheers
Lisa
Hi Lisa, oh this is so wonderful to hear! Thank you for taking the time to let me know, and I hope you enjoyed them 🙂
Damn, these walnut muffins look so good!! I’m really curious to try them. Thank you for sharing the recipe with us!
Thanks so much Isadora! Hope you do get time to try them, they’re a great snack 🙂