Instructions: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line muffin cups with paper baking cups; set aside. Combine flour, sugar, cinnamon and baking soda; stir. Add carrots and raisins, stir to coat. Stir in margarine; set aside. Combine buttermilk, egg substitute, orange juice, and vanilla; stir into flour mixture. Fill each cup about 2/3 full. Combine cream cheese, walnuts, sour cream, and 1/3 TBSP sugar. Top each portion of batter with an equal amount of cheese mixture. Bake in middle rack for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from pan to rack and cool.

* Original

Thanks, Betsy, for sharing this one. I grated 3 carrots and used about 1+1/4 cups (un packed) or 2 1/4 carrots

The trick of mixing the fat in with the dry ingredients and making a bit of crumb before adding the wet I think helped keep them light.

The texture is that of a low-moisture "quick-bread" - so we could increase the carrots and perhaps plump the raisins in oj. Advice - be careful not to over cook (over dry) these muffs. They cook a bit while cooling. I split the batch into two sizes: 4 standard and "6 texas." I didnt use the cheese filling. Instead we filled each muffin 1/2-full, plopped a 1/2 tsp of whipped honey with pecan butter (a gift ;-)), then topped so that the muffin was 2/3 full. There was no surprise "bite" of the "filling" - the honey spread. oh well.

Also we didnt have frozen oj concentrate; i used same amount of orange marmalade. I used all buttermilk.

The flavor was good but not as flavorful as wed like to compensate for the fat. Besides, we are spoiled by mimis carrot raisin molasses muffins - higher fat! (sigh). We just dont have them more than about 6 times a year.

So, try this recipe. Add a little more flavor: maybe orange zest and more cinnamon or pumpkin-pie spice blend.

Serve with applesauce if you dont want to smother it with ICBINB!-) They will be good with soup and/or salad. [PatHanneman (kitpath@earthlink.net)]

I did a few new recipes this weekend, and everything turned out really well. Here was breakfast this morning.

I know I got this from one of the lists, so thanks to whoever posted it. I had to make some adjustments/guesses. The original posting left out the amount of carrots, so I guessed at a cup - it probably could have gone up to 1 1/2 cups. There were no spices in the recipes, so I added cinnamon. After reading the directions, I also decided to melt the butter, although it didnt say to. And I made a few adjustments to lower the fat even more. I used fat-free sour cream and buttermilk, I used a combo of butter and I Cant Believe Its Not Butter-Lite, but I used eggs instead of the substitute because I didnt have any thawed. I just put the dollop of cream cheese mixture on top and it didnt fully sink into the middle; next time I would probably either push it down in or put some batter, then cream cheese, then more batter. The original recipe said it made 12 muffins

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