High Protein Gajar Halwa Muffins

SWEET THINGS— FEBRUARY 27, 2025

High Protein Gajar Halwa Muffins

PREP TIME: 15 MIN | COOK TIME: 25 MIN | TOTAL TIME: 1HR

Introducing my cross between traditional Indian “Gajar halwa” (a sweet and spiced carrot pudding), a carrot cake, and a muffin. They’re fragrant, moist, packed full of gut loving ingredients, and the perfect treat to whip up as a nutritious snack. With 12 grams of protein including the fluffy, dreamy skyr frosting this refined-sugar free and gluten free muffin couldn't be more drool-worthy!

Happy Thursday, people. It’s time to celebrate with these tender and fluffy Gajar Halwa Muffins AKA moist carrot cupcakes studded with sultanas and pistachios and topped with a creamy, delish skyr frosting. They’re perfect for a mid-morning or afternoon pick me up or post workout.

Or for breakfast on a Monday morning. No judgment.

PS - Got a sweet tooth? Try out my chewy, moist giant high protein cookie that has 20g of protein with no protein powder!

Tips for making muffins from scratch:

I know that it can seem so much easier to throw together a muffin mix or buy one at the bakery, but believe me when I tell you that you won’t regret making these homemade carrot muffins. This recipe isn’t traditional in it’s use of butter and flour so dare I say it might be easier to make than a regular cupcake?

So I’ve rounded up all the tips to make homemade muffin making go as smoothly as possible before you get started:

• Make sure to measure your ingredients carefully. I measure all the wet and dry ingredients out and lay them out before I start. This will help everything come together smoothly and quickly.

• Use high quality ingredients. I try to shop organic, local and fresh as much as possible.

• Don’t over mix your batter! Obviously you don’t want huge clumps of straight flour in your batter, but as soon as everything is smooth, resist the temptation to keep mixing, and trust that you’ve gotten enough air in it during the early stages.

Step-by-step instructions

And just to take annnnnny guess work out of homemade carrot muffins, let’s break it down step by step to ease any of those cake from scratch nerves you might have.

Step One: Strain the Skyr overnight

• I cannot stress enough how crucial it is that your skyr is strained in advance. I suggest straining the skyr or greek yoghurt the night before you make these muffins for the best frosting

• I find that using paper towels creates the best texture - not too dry, which can sometimes happen when using cheesecloth to strain

• You’ll know this step is done when you can easily lift the thickened yoghurt out almost like a solid block.
  

Step Two: Mix Your Dry Ingredients

• Set your oven to 350F

• Mix the flours, spices, salt, and baking powder in a bowl and set aside

Step Three: Shave the carrots, then mix your wet ingredients together

• Shave the carrots into another bowl using a peeler or mandoline

• Make sure the eggs and the ghee/butter are at room temperature so that they do not cool down the batter.

• Add the eggs, skyr, maple syrup, milk of choice, and ghee/butter and mix until just combined (remember: don’t overmix unless you want sad, dense muffins!)

Step Four: Add dry ingredients to the wet ingredients

• What I just said. And again, don’t over mix!

• Gently fold in the sultanas and nuts.

Step Five: Time to bake!

• Prepare a muffin tray with paper liners and use an ice-cream scoop to fill each liner just halfway with the batter

• Bake for 25 mins or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out mostly clean with no sticky bits

Step Five: Cool muffins completely

• Listen, I know you want to just dive in and eat them already but they continue to cook as they cool. And they also taste AMAZING with the frosting on top so it’s worth the wait. So set those muffins on a cooling rack and leave them alone ok? OK?

Tips for frosting cupcakes:

Carrot-based cupcakes and cream-cheese frosting are star crossed lovers. But in an attempt to make these muffins as high protein as possible I frosted them with a Skyr frosting instead. Feel free to use cream cheese (also high protein!) instead!

Make sure your cupcakes are completely cool before topping them with frosting. You can use an offset spatula or a spoon to make big swirly, frosted cupcakes or a pastry bag fit with a star tip (I use 2D) for something a little more gourmet. Whatever you choose, top it off with some pistachios!

Now time to go tackle those homemade cupcakes, loves! Let me know if you have any questions–here to help 🙂

XX

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High Protein Gajar Halwa Muffins

Yield: 8

Author: Diya Eggleston

Prep time: 15 MinCook time: 25 MinTotal time: 40 Min

These gajar halwa muffins have 12g of protein with no protein powder and are so easy to make, fluffy, fragrant and feel indulgent!

Ingredients

Muffins

• 2 eggs
• 2 medium carrots, shredded
• ½ cup skyr or greek yogurt
• 4 tbsp maple syrup
• ¼ cup almond or hemp milk(60 mL)
• 1 tbsp ghee
• 3/4 cup almond flour
• 3/4 cup hemp flour
• 1 ¾ teaspoons baking powder
• 2 tsp Cardamom powder
• 1tsp Nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup raisins or sultanas
• 1/3 cup (total) pistachios and cashews mixed and very finely chopped

Skyr Frosting

• 320g strained skyr
• 30g date sugar

Instructions

1. Strain skyr ahead of time by placing it in a bowl lined with absorbent paper towels for at least 2 hours in the fridge
2. When you’re ready to make the cupcakes: set oven to 350F
3. Mix flours, spices, salt, and baking powder in a bowl and set aside
4. In a bowl, shave 2 carrots, then chop into small pieces. Add egg, skyr, maple syrup, milk of choice, and ghee and mix
5. Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and mix. Then fold in nuts and sultanas
6. Bake for 25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean
7. Remove from oven and cool completely before frosting
8. Frosting: whip strained skyr and date sugar together. Pipe or spread on muffins
9. Grab 2 for breakfast for 24g of protein (30g with soy, pea or whole milk coffee). Or have one as a snack or post workout!

Notes

Due to its size this isn't really a snack, it's more like breakfast! If one giant cookie is too much, you can make this into 2 *bakery size* cookies, or even 4 *regular size* cookies. They keep well for a few days in a container with the lid slightly ajar.

Nutrition Facts

Calories

416

Fat

32 g

Sat. Fat

4 g

Carbs

25 g

Fiber

3 g

Net carbs

22 g

Sugar

17 g

Protein

12 g

Cholesterol

48 mg

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