Banana Carrot Muffins

Have I mentioned that James is a very thoughtful boyfriend? Well, he is. So thoughtful, in fact, that last week he informed me our bananas were getting old and we just so happened to have some leftover shredded carrots and maybe I could bake something healthy with them. For him. And if that wasn't thoughtful enough, I got an email that very same day with a recipe for these banana carrot muffins.

Ingredients:

-1 1/2 C flour (AP or gluten free)
-3/4 C sugar
-1 tsp. baking powder
-1 tsp. baking soda
-1/2 tsp. salt
-1/2 tsp. cinnamon
-1/4 tsp. nutmeg*
-2 eggs, separated (or egg replacer if vegan!)
-1 tablespoon honey
-1/4 tsp. grated orange peel
-2 med. ripe bananas - mashed
-1 C shredded carrots
-1/2 C unsweetened applesauce

Directions:

-Preheat oven to 350

-In large bowl combine: flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon & nutmeg

-In another bowl beat egg yolks. Add in honey & grated orange peel if including. Mix into dry ingredients until just mixed in. Mix in bananas, carrots & applesauce

-In separate bowl beat egg whites until stiff peaks form & fold into batter.

-Fill muffin cups (2/3 full) and bake for 25-30 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.

-This made ~12 muffins for me with a little batter left over.

**I omitted the nutmeg and grated orange peel.

These were delicious and if I ate 2 for breakfast I wasn't hungry for lunch until noon. That's unheard of for me. Usually I'm starving by 10am. Of course, I also usually just eat some almonds for breakfast once I get to work because I literally lay in bed until the absolute last minute and then have no time for breakfast. So maybe that has something to do with it... Either way, I highly recommend these and I despise most anything that could be considered healthy!

"Is this Good For Me?"

You should know by now, nutrition is not my thing. Like, at all. I also don't really believe in 'meals' per se. I just want to eat whatever I'm in the mood for when I'm hungry. Cereal counts as a perfectly well balanced dinner to me. So does cake, for that matter. So last night I was on my own for dinner and was looking forward to it allll day. See, James is a meal person. Often times a meat & vegetable person. But I knew that in the fridge we had some delicious Red Lobster biscuits left over from when I somehow conned half my family into going there this weekend. And that's all I wanted for dinner. And it's all I ate for dinner. And it was heavenly. And started sentences with 'and' is totally not proper but I'm doing it. And I like it. 

Delicious, nutritious, well round meal. Yes?

Oh, and this little shark circles the table as I eat. Maybe if I acted like a grown up and ate at the kitchen table instead of the coffee table this wouldn't happen. Only problem with that? My kitchen table is really more of laundry limbo - where folded laundry goes to wait forever until I finally cave and put it away. So, coffee table dinners will continue. And I will continue guarding my food from the shark.

The shark.

Doesn't everyone have to eat with a spray bottle to help guard their food from the circling shark? No? Weird. 

Anyway, after that oh so nutritious dinner I decided to make a cake. I've gotten a ton of help recently from some coworkers at work and I'm pretty sure there's no better way to say 'thanks!' then food. Especially sweets. I've obviously been on a huge cinnamon kick and was seriously craving this Cinnamon Roll Cake. Several coworkers are gluten free so I decided to make a GF version. It was super easy, and while it didn't turn out tasting exactly the same as the original, it was pretty darn good. I was actually pleasantly surprised as I really had no idea what I was doing, I just decided to wing it.

Here's the adjustments I made. Original recipe here.

-Flour - I used 3 C King Arthur's AP GF Baking Mix

-Xanthan gum - I added 1.5 tsp xanthan gum

-Milk - I added a teeny bit of extra milk to help keep it moist

-Butter - I didn't add any extra butter, but next time I think I would - it doesn't have as much of that gooey, buttery cinnamon taste as the original. I would definitely add more to the topping & probably just make extra topping in general. 

All in all it turned out quite good - the texture is good, its not too crumbly at all and it definitely satisfies my cinnamon craving. While on his THIRD piece James asked "Is this good for me? I mean it's gluten free, right?" Answer: Sure, as long as you ignore the 2 C of butter & 2 C of sugar. He has some trouble understanding gluten free doesn't necessarily mean healthy - but hey, any excuse to eat more cake is fine by me :)

Gluten Free Cinnamon Roll Cake

Gluten Free Carrot Cake

That thing I expected to be a complete flop...

I'll be honest, I didn't expect this to work. A few of my coworker's are gluten free. One of them happened to have a birthday over the weekend so if I was asked if I wanted to bring a cake. Her only request was something with cream cheese frosting. Of course I said yes and then immediately got nervous. I've made other GF baked goods in the past, but cake is cake... and no one wants to ruin cake. Plus, the texture of a cake is the most important part... and the texture is usually the part that's slightly off in most GF recipes. At least for me. This recipe? I fed it to James as carrot cake is one of his favorites (and he's my poor guinea pig) and he loved it. You can barely tell a difference. Success!

I will say, mine was a bit tricky to get out of the pan. I just made it as a sheet cake and I had a bit of trouble removing the first piece... it came out like this:

Not the prettiest piece of cake, but the taste was still delicious. I refrigerated it overnight and it held together today when we devoured it at lunch! If you're gluten-free and love carrot cake, make this. Now. But don't grate the carrots by hand. I tried that and 3 cups of grated carrots is a LOT. Hence this cake didn't get finished until almost 11pm. 

Ingredients:

Cake:

-2C sugar *

-4 eggs

-1 1/2 C veg. oil* 

-2C all purpose GF flour mix*

-2tsp baking soda

-2tsp baking powder*

-2tsp cinnamon

-1tsp salt

-2tsp vanilla extract

-1C chopped nuts*

-3C grated or shredded carrots

Cream Cheese Frosting:

-4tbsp unsalted butter

-3oz cream cheese

-1tsp vanilla extract

-2 1/2C powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 350F. Lightly grease cake pan (two round 9" pans, or one 9x13") or muffin cups if making cupcakes. 

Cream sugar & eggs together, then add oil & vanilla and mix until smooth.  While that's mixing, combine dry ingredients except carrots & nuts into a bowl and mix together. Slowly add dry ingredients to mixing bowl and continue beating until blended smooth.

Stir in nuts & carrots and pour into cake pans. Bake for 35-45 minutes rotating pan halfway through. Original recipe says 45-55, but I did 40 minutes and it was slightly overdone around the edges and on top. 

While cake is cooling cream butter, cream cheese & vanilla together in mixing bowl until smooth. Slowly and powdered sugar and beat until creamy. Add more cream cheese or powdered sugar until desired taste is achieved. This is a very mild cream cheese frosting which I loved as I'm not a huge fan of the tanginess of cream cheese. If you like really tangy cream cheese frosting you may want to add a bit more. James loves CC frosting though and licked both the beaters clean, so it was definitely a winner. I have to admit that even though I've always preferred buttercream, this was for sure one of the best tasting frostings I've made!

***

The ingredients listed are the amounts used in the original recipe. I made some slight changes, but I'm sure it'd be fine either way. I used just under 2C sugar as many reviews stated that the cake was too sweet. I didn't even know that was possible, but whatever. Some reviews also said the cake was too oily, so again I did just under 1 1/2C oil. It was plenty moist, but not at all oily. King Arthur's All Purpose baking mix worked great as the flour. It does NOT contain xanthum gum or guar gum though so I did add 1tsp of xanthum gum. Check to see if the mix you're using already contains one of those - if not you will need to add it. Also, I didn't know this until I started baking some GF things, but not all baking powder is gluten free. Check your labels! They all contain something to help absorb moisture and some contain wheat starch, though most use corn starch. If you can't find a gluten free baking powder you can make your own using this simple recipe here.

*Original recipe for this cake was found here.

Linked up with Gluten Free Yummy