Carrot Muffins With Marmalade

By Melissa Clark

Updated March 1, 2026

  • Joseph De Leo for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Rebecca Jurkevich.
Media 1 of 1
Total Time
45 minutes
Prep Time
15 minutes
Cook Time
25 minutes
Rating
5(310)
Comments
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These tender muffins are like mini, not-too-sweet carrot cakes, with a dollop of marmalade tucked into the center of each one. They’re adaptable too. Play around with the spices, the marmalade flavors, even the carrot is negotiable — shredded butternut squash or apple will work just as well. They’re best served a day or two after baking, but leftover muffins freeze well for up to 6 months.

Featured in: Marmalade Is Sunshine in a Jar — And in Your Cooking

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Ingredients

Yield:12 muffins

  • Cooking spray or butter

  • 1 ¼ cups/155 grams whole-wheat flour

  • ½ cup/45 grams old-fashioned oats

  • 1 teaspoon baking powder

  • 1 teaspoon baking soda

  • 1 teaspoon ground cardamom (or cinnamon or ginger)

  • ½ teaspoon fine sea or table salt

  • ½ cup/120 grams plain whole-milk yogurt

  • 2 large eggs

  • ½ cup neutral oil, such as grapeseed or avocado, or melted butter

  • ½ packed cup/110 grams light brown sugar

  • 1 teaspoon finely grated orange or lemon zest

  • 1 packed cup/110 grams finely grated carrot (from 2 medium carrots)

  • ¼ cup marmalade

Ingredient Substitution Guide
Nutritional analysis per serving

28 grams carbs; 32 milligrams cholesterol; 149 calories; 2 grams monosaturated fat; 1 gram polyunsaturated fat; 1 gram saturated fat; 3 grams fat; 3 grams fiber; 166 milligrams sodium; 4 grams protein; 14 grams sugar

Note: The information shown is Edamam’s estimate based on available ingredients and preparation. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.

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Preparation

  1. Step 1

    Heat oven to 425 degrees. Line a 12-cup standard muffin tin with paper liners or generously grease (with nonstick cooking spray or butter).

  2. Step 2

    In a large bowl, whisk the flour, oats, baking powder, baking soda, cardamom and salt. In a medium bowl, whisk the yogurt, eggs, ½ cup oil, sugar and zest until just smooth. Whisk in carrots.

  3. Step 3

    Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and gently stir with a flexible spatula just until no streaks of flour remain. Divide about two-thirds of the batter evenly among the muffin cups. Top each with a heaping teaspoon of marmalade, then cover the marmalade with remaining batter.

  4. Step 4

    Bake for 5 minutes. Reduce the oven temperature to 350 degrees and continue to bake until the muffins spring back when lightly pressed, 13 to 18 minutes longer (a tester may emerge with crumbs attached, but there shouldn’t be any raw batter clinging).

  5. Step 5

    Let cool in the pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes, then unmold and serve warm or cool completely.

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Ratings

5 out of 5
310 user ratings
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Comments

saga

I understand what you're saying, sometimes the recipe is perfect exactly as written, but from my perspective I enjoy reading how other people have approached the recipe. Sometimes ideas about how to substitute ingredients or tweak a little for personal preferences is helpful. Over the years, I have found such comments very beneficial in expanding my knowledge and creativity as a cook and baker.

Monika

These muffins are delicious! I used 1/2 tsp. ground ginger & 1/2 tsp. cinnamon, greek yogurt, Meyer lemon zest, threw in some chopped pecans and used my homemade Meyer lemon marmalade. Very tasty, the marmalade pocket gives it a sweet surprise! Will make these again.

Yum! Will make again.

I made these with white flour instead of whole wheat flour and they came out great. The recipe is spot on accurate for a dozen muffins. I cut back about 15g of the brown sugar and used pumpkin pie spice instead of just cardamom. I used the zest of a blood orange and regular Aldi brand marmalade and the marmalade made the muffins sweet enough. This is a nice alternative to a morning glory muffin or a bran muffin. I’m sure you could add nuts and raisins too, but being the first time I’ve made them I kept it to as close to the original recipe as possible.

Deirdre

Excellent. I can’t figure out why mine didn’t come out as brilliantly orange as in the photo (I made no modifications), but they tasted excellent and that’s the main thing. Next time I won’t worry as much about fully covering my marmalade dots because I think they look nice poking out the tops as in the photo. Having them visible is also nice because people won’t be surprised biting in (I kept warning people so they wouldn’t think it was raw batter:)

Nancy from Maine

Love these muffins. As I am always looking to reduce calories without sacrificing taste or texture, I reduced oil to 1/4 cup and added a 1/4 cup unsweetened apple sauce the second time I made it - turned out even better! For spices, I used 1 tsp. cinnamon and 1/2 tsp. ground ginger. Nutritious enough for breakfast, filling enough for a snack, sweet enough for a dessert.

Annie

I used cottage cheese instead of Greek yogurt and decreased brown sugar to 1/4 cup. So delicious, makes for a quick breakfast!

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