Thursday, August 11, 2011

Retro Day...Carrot Cake Muffins




My mom's carrot cake covered in cream cheese frosting was always one of my favorite desserts. Combine that with my love of pumpkin pie (one of my friend's pregnancy cravings) and these little babies were born. (pun intended)

Here is the healthy inspiration recipe if you want to see how I tweaked it:

Ode to Mom Carrot Cake Muffins

2 cups of grated carrots, tightly packed
Juice of one orange
Zest of one orange (zest before you juice so you don't kill your fingers!)
2 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup of organic raw agave syrup
1/2 cup honey
1/2 heaping cup of pineapple tidbits in 100% juice, drained

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Mix all these ingredients together well. I added the zest to add more flavor and swapped out agave for some of the honey to lighten the sweetener taste and the results are tasty!

In a separate bowl combine:

1 cup unbleached white flour
1 1/2 cups wheat flour (or just use all white if you don't have any wheat on hand, all wheat would make a very heavy muffin)
2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ginger
1/4 tsp cloves
3/4 cup of chopped walnuts (I only added this to half the batch so my littles would eat the muffins)

Add dry to wet and stir until just combined. The spice combo is the pumpkin pie inspiration and me wanting it to be fall and not 110 outside. Scoop into prepared muffin tins and bake. Mine made about 20 muffins. Bake for about 16-20 min or until springy to the touch. Depends on your oven.

If you are concerned about your waistline just make some herbal tea, sit back and enjoy the fall goodness for a snack or part of breakfast. If you are craving desert continue to the next step...

Cream Cheese Glaze

3 oz cream cheese, softened
3 Tbsp of raw organic evaporated cane sugar (you will need to put this in the food processor until it resembles tan colored powdered sugar)
3 Tbsp of milk (for non-dairy readers, coconut milk would be great!)

Whisk together and drizzle over cooled muffins. Garnish with additional chopped walnuts. Enjoy your veggies, omega 3s and good fats all packaged up in a tasty treat.

Leave a comment with your favorite back to school/fall treat.

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