I think I’ve become addicted to chocolate. Don’t laugh–I’m serious! I think about it all day long, I eat huge quantities of it whenever it’s available, and I get grumpy if I don’t have any. I wake up and go to bed thinking about it. (Wish I could be addicted like that to, oh, say, the Bible, right?) It was this point of the pregnancy with Tommy that I had Christmas with my in-laws and gained 10 pounds in two weeks. yep. I don’t want that to happen again, so I am desperately trying to replace chocolate with a better alternative. I bought another 10 lb bag of carrots from Costco this weekend, but somehow carrot sticks don’t sound right when I’m thinking about chocolate. So I decided to look around for a good carrot muffin recipe so that I could feel like I was satisfying my sweet tooth but with a lot more health benefits than a bag of Reeces peanut butter cups. Here’s what worked yesterday:
Carrot-applesauce Muffins
3/4 c. all-purpose flour
1/2 c. whole wheat flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. grated nutmeg
1 large (or two medium) egg
1/4 c. brown sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
3 Tbsp. vegetable oil
1 cup applesauce
1 1/2 cups grated carrots (about 3 large carrots)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly spray muffin cups or muffin tin.
In a large bowl, combine flour, whole wheat flour, baking powder, soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg. In a medium bowl, combine the eggs, brown sugar, and vanilla, mixing well. Stir in the oil, applesauce and carrots. Add to the flour and mix just until incorporated. Pour into the prepared muffin tins and bake until a toothpick comes out clean, about 20 minutes.
Makes 18 muffins.
I made the mistake of giving Tommy one when he woke up from his nap yesterday, and he chanted “Muttin! Muttin!” the rest of the afternoon. Clearly they were a hit with him!
NB: I usually use unsweetened applesauce, but I only happened to have the Aldi sweetened variety on hand this week. These muffins are very moist, but not super sweet. I thought they tasted healthy without being too healthy. I’m not one of those girls who substitutes whole wheat for normal flour without blinking…I need a bit of sweetness to counteract the heartiness of the whole wheat! I cut down the sugar a little from the original recipe, but I might add in a bit more if I were to use unsweetened applesauce. If I used all white flour, I probably wouldn’t add the sugar in at all.
to try next time: adding in flaxseed, ginger (recommendations in other carrot muffin recipes I perused yesterday)
those look very tasty! i feel like i think about food all the time these days so having something relatively healthy to snack on would be good!
You crack me up. And that whole being pregnant around the holidays… not cool. I think I gained ten pounds in two weeks, too! At least.
I’ll have to go through my recipes and see if I have anything to help you out 🙂
One thing that I have been thinking about doing (my sister inspired me) is substituting sugar with honey in recipes. It’s still sweet and is healthier (i did, however, put sugar in my coffee this morning. Sigh).
But it’s much more excusable to gain 10 lbs in two weeks over Christmas when your mother-in-law is famous for her Christmas cookies than when you’re home alone with a toddler (who you don’t let eat refined sugar) in the middle of March, with no big holidays in sight for another month! =)
Emily, have you ever made your own granola? I’ve been making it since Christmas and it’s wonderful for giving you some sweetness without the guilt. I haven’t had chocolate in weeks and don’t miss it anymore b/c when I really crave a snack (usually after dinner), I have my granola instead. You can adjust sweetness easily by adjusting the amount of honey/sugar added and what dried fruit you use!
I used to be really into making granola, but I haven’t done it in a couple of years! That’s a really great idea!
Em–Made the muffins tonight and added some raisins and walnuts (hoping they would satisfy my urge for bread with raisins and walnuts). Very, very good! And M asked for seconds, too 🙂 Thanks for the recipe!
ooohhh… the granola thing is great. I eat that with yogurt when I am craving something sweet (and dairy).
Oooh those muffins look so moist and yummy! I bought a big old bag of carrots last week and was planning to bake a carrot cake soon, but I might have to try your recipe instead 😀