Carrot Cake Muffins (Gluten Free)

For Ellie's 1st birthday, I made these little muffins.  I was not thrilled with the idea of giving her a ton of sugar and processed junk, so I thought I'd do something more healthy.  But healthy doesn't have to mean boring.  These are anything but boring.  They are moist, flavourful, and delicious.  And Ellie loved them. I made another batch today for Bible study, but since they were fresh out of the oven, so I didn't have time to frost them, and they were really good without the frosting too!   Definitely a new family favourite!



Carrot Cake Muffins with Maple Cream Cheese Frosting
Ingredients:

not sure what to do with the candle!

¼ c Coconut Flour
¼ tsp Baking Soda
¼ tsp Salt
2 tsp Cinnamon
½ tsp Nutmeg
5 Tbsp melted Coconut Oil (or other oil of choice)
3 room temperature Eggs
5 Tbsp Honey
2 tsp Grated Ginger (or you can use pre-grated tubed ginger)
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
1 c lightly packed very finely grated Carrots
¼ c dried grated Coconut (toasted or raw)
¼ cups Currants or chopped Raisins

For the frosting:
1 pkg lite cream cheese (its smoother than the original), softened
maple syrup to taste (approx 1/4 c.)
1 tsp vanilla

Directions:
Recipe makes 24 mini muffins.
Set your eggs aside to come to room temperature. The quick method would be to place eggs in a warm water bath for 3 minutes. Be sure to dry the eggs off before you crack them.
Mix together the coconut flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg into a medium sized bowl. Sift or use a fork to break up all lumps in the coconut flour mixture. Set aside.
In a separate mixing bowl, whisk together the coconut oil, room temperature eggs (it’s very important that they are room temperature, or the coconut oil will harden), honey/sugar, ginger and vanilla extract. Whisk till well blended.
Add the dry ingredients to the wet, again using a wire whisk or mixer. Mix well so that there are no lumps in the batter. It will look a bit like melted caramel.
Fold in the carrots, grated coconut and the currants.
Spoon a tablespoon of batter into each mini muffin cup.
Bake at 350 degrees F for 10-12 minutes depending on your oven. Just don’t over bake or they’ll get dry.
Cool the cupcakes.

For the frosting:
Soften the cream cheese, mix in mixer with wire whisk attachment until light and fluffy.  Add vanilla and maple syrup.  (I didn't measure, just poured the syrup, until the cream cheese tasted sweet enough).  Mix well.  Separate into 3 bowls (if decorating with carrots), 1 with most, 2 others with a small amount each.  Add a few drops of green to one small bowl, and a few drops of yellow and red to the other, mix until the colour is to your liking.  Frost the muffins with white frosting.  Put orange frosting into piping bag with very fine tip, or put into sandwich bag and snip a TINY corner off with scissors.  Pipe the carrots, then repeat with the green for the tops. 

Enjoy!