Carrot Cake Muffins

My then soon-to-be- five year old requested this be her birthday cake after inhaling a couple of these muffins... er cupcakes.  The picture is of said birthday cake.  It was well received.  While this recipe isn't necessarily healthy, as far as cake goes, it's pretty darned close (except the icing- that's just straight up indulgence).
 

Carrot Cake Muffins

Ingredients

• 4eggs
• 1 cup ground flax seed
• ½ cup butter, melted
• ¾ cup brown sugar
• 1 cup white sugar
• 3 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 cups whole wheat flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ginger
• ½ teaspoon allspice
• 1 lb bag baby carrots
• 1 20oz can pineapple, drained

Instructions

1. Combine eggs, butter, flax, vanilla and sugar. 
2. In a separate bowl (or on top of the creamed butter and sugar mixture- cause I’m lazy and don’t want too many dirty dishes) combine dry ingredients.  Mix wet and dry ingredients together. 
3. Blend carrots and pineapple in blender (I used the pulse button on our Blendtec) and stir into batter.
4. Spoon in lightly greased paper muffin liners and bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes or until tops of muffins spring back. Yields 36 muffins.

The cream cheese icing recipe I use calls for 2 packages cream cheese, one stick of butter, one teaspoon vanilla and adding powdered sugar until you reach desired thickness.  Half that recipe would be more than enough to frost 36 muffins.

Rules of Thumb

There are quite a few dishes I make that I almost never follow a recipe for.  Thus they are never quite the same twice (lasagna, stir fries, soups and chili).  A large part of the reason for my going recipe-less is my desire to use what I have on hand, what's in season and/or what's on sale.  I do have some patterns I follow, however;

1. If I can add beans, I do.  I rarely make any kind of soup or chili without adding a variety of beans.  Beans are a super food, they're inexpensive and they are great in food storage.  And yes, this can lead to flatulence.  My poor husband.

2.  Can I use whole wheat?  There are certain recipes that "disguise" whole wheat well.  Zucchini bread, banana bread, pumpkin bread, bread, carrot cake, anything cocoa based, lasagna (whole wheat noodles), muffins and so on and so forth.  Sometimes I only sub part whole wheat flour, but, as long as I have access to fresh ground flour- it's usually all or nothing.

3. I add veggies.  Soup, stir fry, pasta, dips, smoothies- I add veggies to all these things, again just depending on what I have on hand.  I'm an onion fanatic.  Onions go in everything savory.

4. I add ground flax.  If I bake it, it probably has flax in it.  Other favorite add ins are nonfat plain Greek yogurt and quinoa. 

5.  I reduce or sub out sugar wherever I can without sacrificing flavor.

6.  I never mess with butter.  Butter is where the richness comes from.  Butter may be high in fat, but gosh darn it, it makes things taste good.



Black Bean Brownie Cookies

Beans can be used for a substitute for oil in a number of recipes, provided those recipes call for some strong flavors, like cocoa.  It takes some tweaking to get the consistency right sometimes, but the health benefits are pretty awesome.  That being said, the original recipe for these cookies I first saw posted to Facebook by a friend of mine.  I couldn't just let the recipe be, even though it was already "healthified," because I can never just let a recipe be.  I just can't.  Thus here is my even healthier (I added things like flax and Greek yogurt and tweaked the sugar) and arguably yummier (at the very least, I think I improved the texture) recipe:

Black Bean Chocolate Brownie Cookies

Ingredients

• 3 cups black beans, rinsed well
• 3/4 cup milk
• 1/3 cup peanut butter
• 6 T. butter, melted
• 1 T. vanilla extract
• ½ cup agave
• 2/3 cup nonfat plain Greek yogurt
• 11/2 cup whole wheat flour (I used fresh ground flour- it's lighter and better for you)
• 1 c. unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 cup Truvia baking blend (Stevia + sugar)
• 1/3 cup (be generous) ground flax
• 1 T. baking powder
• dash of cinnamon
• pinch of sea salt
• 1 cup dark chocolate chips, plus more for sprinkling on top OR butterscotch chips (my husband's preference which I stumbled upon by happy accident).

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 375 and line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.
2. Combine black beans, milk, peanut butter, vanilla, agave, Greek yogurt and melted butter in a food processor and process until smooth (I used my Blendtec).
3. Combine whole wheat flour, cocoa powder, sugar, baking powder, flax, salt, and cinnamon, in a large bowl.  Stir in wet ingredients.
4. Stir in dark chocolate chips.
5. Spoon dollops of the batter onto the baking sheet and sprinkle with the extra chocolate chips.  These cookies do not spread, but just puff a little as they cook so you can get them pretty cozy.
6. Bake for 10 minutes.
7. Let cool slightly, then put on a baking rack until they are cooled completely.
8. ENJOY!!

 

Note: These should probably be kept in the fridge, if they stick around that long.  I, er, I mean, my kids wolf these down like nobody's business.