Name: Lightened-Up Carrot Cake Muffins
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 20 min
Yield: 20
Ingredients: 1 cup FOR THE MUFFINS:; 1 cup White Whole Wheat Flour; 1 teaspoon All-purpose Flour; ½ teaspoons Baking Powder; 1 teaspoon Baking Soda; ½ teaspoons Cinnamon; ¼ teaspoons Nutmeg; ¼ teaspoons All Spice; ½ cups Ginger; ½ cups Nonfat Plain Yogurt; 2 Tablespoons Unsweetened Applesauce; ⅔ cups Olive Oil; 1 whole Packed Brown Sugar; 1 teaspoon Large Egg; 1 cup Vanilla Extract; ½ cups Canned Crushed Pineapple (in 100% Pineapple Juice); 1-½ cup Unsweetened Almond Milk; 3 ounces, weight Finely Grated Carrots; 1-½ cup FOR THE GLAZE:; 1-½ Tablespoon 1/3 Reduced Fat Cream Cheese (softened); 20 whole Powdered Sugar

Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,917 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Cinnamon + gingertop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,380 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Wheat + cinnamontop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together537 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).
Nutmeg + gingertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,324 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Wheat + olivetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,100 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (wheat, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, yogurt, olive, sugar):

Cardamomfits better
Cuminfits better
Turmericfits better
Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against wheat, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, yogurt, olive, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Flour	1 cup (125g) all-purpose	455
Olive Oil	1 tbsp (14g)	119
Yogurt	170g plain Greek	100
Cream Cheese	1 oz (28g)	99
Pineapple	1 cup chunks (165g)	82
Egg	1 large egg (50g)	78
Sugar	1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated	49
Almond Milk	1 cup (240ml) unsweetened	30
Carrot	1 medium (61g)	25
Nutmeg	1 tsp ground (2.2g)	12
Vanilla	1 tsp extract (4ml)	12
Cinnamon	1 tsp ground (2.6g)	6
Ginger	1 tsp grated fresh (2g)	2

Lightened-Up Carrot Cake Muffins