Carrot Cake Muffins

It is so easy to fall into bad habits.

During summer break, I am all over snacktime. I am in tune to my kids' hunger patterns, as they have been with me all day for the last three months.  I remember that neither one of them really wants to eat a big lunch or dinner, they are mini-meal eaters. I get in the habit of mindfully preparing mini-meals throughout the day, differentiating less between snacks and meals, just trying to make sure that all the food I offer (or most) is purposeful and healthy. Often we are at the beach or camping, or engaged in some other fun summer activity to which sitting down to eat a meal is secondary. We live in a place where summer is perfect, magical, beautiful, but if you blink you might miss it. One must take advantage of every sunny, blissful hour. Having healthy snacks at the ready is key.

Then in September, when school starts, I am still rocking the healthy, mindful, homemade snacks and including these in lunches (my daughter Hayden is the only one who eats lunch at school, as Ben is in kindergarten which is half-day. But Ben has become hyper-vigilant about fairness and equity, and I have accepted his demand that his lunch be the same as Hayden's, whether served at home or not).

The pace begins to pick up within a few weeks, and suddenly--or perhaps subtly--the lunches become more pre-packaged. I am still very picky about what goes in their lunches, but I begin to buy the single-serving versions of the foods I find acceptable, and I begin to broaden my spectrum of "acceptable". I am still packing fresh fruit and sandwiches, but also single-size yogurt, applesauce, raisin boxes, Annie's Bunnies, kids' energy bars.

The afternoons get shorter and shorter as they are filled up with homework, after-school activities, dental appointments, etc. The pre-packaged snacks that were for lunches only and only one per day per kid become so tantalizingly easy as every day becomes a race to the finish. Pretty soon my kids get in the habit of picking one of these options at the end of the school day (again, Ben is already home but has a snack with Sis in the name of equanimity), albeit one they didn't already have for lunch.

The weeks go by, and then, sometime in the deepest chasms of winter I realize that, with the exception of breakfast and dinner (which, as per their aforementioned eating habits, they don't eat much of)  my kids are eating boxed, bagged, and bottled everything. "How did this happen?" I ask myself, and then it dawns on me, I have not baked since Christmas.

Enter the carrot muffins I made yesterday. They are almost gone now, less than 24 hours later, but that's ok, I can make more! And more and more! My kids are going back to the one pre-packaged snack a day, for lunches only, and for that even they are relieved.  My baking dry spell is over.

Carrot Cake Muffins

1 1/3 c. oat flour (rolled oats processed to flour consistency in food processor)
1/4 c. almond meal
1/2 tsp. sea salt
2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp. ground nutmeg
2 eggs
1/4 c. cane juice crystals
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
1/4 c. coconut oil (heated to liquid form and then cooled slightly
3/4 c. orange juice
3/4 c. finely grated carrot (I used one bunch of organic carrots from the grocery store, though clearly a "bunch" is not a standardized form of measurement)
1/4 c. Craisins

For topping (which is optional, without it the muffins are delicious, but the topping bumped it up to the treat category for my kids, and earned it the "cake" moniker):

3 oz. cream cheese
2 tbsp. honey plus more for smoother, more glaze-like constistency (a glaze was what I was going for, and I probably doubled the amount of honey before I decided a little dollop of thicker topping was ok and gave up chasing that elusive, translucent glaze)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees and prepare 18 muffin cups, either with liners or grease and flour.

Whisk together oat flour, almond meal, salt, baking powder, cinnamon, and nutmeg. In a separate bowl use a mixer to combine eggs, cane juice crystals, and coconut oil. As the coconut oil mixes with the other ingredients it will inevitably start to solidify, and the batter will look a little chunky. Just keep calm and mix on. It will all even out in the end*. Add orange juice, vanilla extract, mix well. Add flour mixture slowly while mixing, until thoroughly blended and smoothish. Set mixer aside. With a wooden spoon or spatula fold in carrots and Craisins.

* I tried to mitigate the solidifying of the coconut oil by having all other ingredients at room temperature. But this isn't always realistic; who sets the eggs and juice out an hour in advance? I found that thoroughly mixing on medium-high yielded perfectly well-mixed, if not slightly lumpy, batter.


Fill muffin cups 1/3 full (or use more batter per muffin and just make less muffins).  Bake about 15 minutes. While muffins are baking, heat cream cheese and honey in small saucepan on low heat, whisking constantly. 

Top muffins with a small dollop when sauce and muffins are still warm to try to achieve the glaze consistency (ok so I didn't entirely give up on achieving that effect).