Healthy Carrot Ginger Muffins - GF

🛒 Ingredients

Before we get to the full recipe for these carrot muffins with gingerbread spices, here are a few notes about some of the ingredients. You'll find a complete list of ingredients with amounts in the recipe card below.

• flour: this recipe uses a combination of finely ground almond flour and tapioca starch. This combination works beautifully for muffins, loaves and coffee cakes.
• spices: gingerbread spices, including cinnamon, ginger, allspice, cloves and nutmeg.
• oil: you can use melted butter or coconut oil
• sweeteners: a combination of maple syrup and cooking molasses gives just the right amount of sweetness with hints of gingerbread flavour.
• carrots: grated
• raisins: optional, but very good! They add natural sweetness and lots of interest to these gingerbread muffins!

🥄 Instructions

You'll find detailed instructions in the recipe card at the end of this post. Here's a quick overview of what you'll do to make these carrot muffins.

• In a medium bowl, combine melted and cooled butter (or coconut oil), maple syrup, molasses, eggs and vanilla.
• In a large bowl, combine almond flour, tapioca flour, spices, salt, and baking powder.
• Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, then gently stir in the grated carrots.
• Divide the batter evenly between the muffin cups. Using a large cookie scoop makes this easy. This recipe will make 10 muffins.
• Bake for 18-20 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean or almost clean with a few crumbs.
• Cool completely before topping with optional cream cheese glaze.

Save time! Make a batch of gingerbread spice mix to use in this and several other recipes. (If you don't want to make this mix at the moment, you'll find the correct amounts for the spices in the recipe card.)

Combine 4 teaspoons ground cinnamon, 4 teaspoons ground ginger, 4 teaspoons ground allspice, 1 teaspoon ground cloves and 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg. Store in a small jar. 

Use 3 ½ teaspoons of this mix to make these muffins, then use the leftover mix to some of these yummy recipes!

• Gingerbread Ice Cream Parfait: rich, decadent and absolutely delicious!
• Healthy Chia Gingerbread Smoothie: perfect for Christmas morning!
• Traditional and Reliable Gingerbread Cut-Out Cookies: our family's favourite recipe for gingerbread people
• 30-Minute Gingerbread Spiced Granola: a healthy way to start those chilly winter mornings.
• Sweet and Spicy Gingerbread Spiced Nuts: party nuts!

Cream Cheese Frosting for Carrot Ginger Muffins

Combine equal parts of cream cheese (regular or light), room temperature butter and maple syrup with a little vanilla extract. Stir or beat until very smooth. Either spread with a knife, or add to a piping bag and pipe on the muffin tops. Garnish with a little orange zest, if you'd like.

As as alternative, you can sprinkle the muffin tops with cinnamon-sugar before baking. Combine 1 tablespoon of coconut sugar or brown sugar with 1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon. Sprinkle a little on the muffin tops, then bake.

It's important to let baked muffins cool completely. If you freeze them before they have completely cooled, the moisture in them will condense and form ice crystals in your freezer container. For extra insurance against this, you can line your freezer container with a sheet of paper towel to absorb any excess moisture.

You can use plastic or glass storage containers to freeze muffins. You can also put them in a ziplock freezer bag. Use a straw to remove as much air from the bag as you can.

Thaw muffins at room temperature, or simply wrap one and pack it in your lunch. It will be thawed by coffee time!

To reheat frozen muffins, you can place them in a microwave for 20- 30 seconds, or wrap them in foil and reheat them at 350°F. for about 12- 15 minutes.

Frozen muffins will last for about 3 months or more.