Carrot spice muffins

My husband loves carrot cake. In fact, if he had his way, we would have had carrot cake at our wedding. I never make carrot cake because there's no way that the two us can polish off a whole cake. When I saw this recipe for carrot spice muffins in Baking From My Home to Yours, I thought that this might be a good way for my husband to get his carrot cake fix.

This is a chunky muffin with shredded carrots, coconut, raisins and nuts (I used pecans). It's not quite as sweet as a standard carrot cake. The only change I made to the recipe was to cut the fat by substituting applesauce for half of the oil. If you added a cream cheese frosting, these muffins could definitely be elevated to cupcake level. That being said, they're perfect as is for brunch or a snack.