Gluten Free Carrot Muffins

 Actually, these puppies aren't just gluten free, they're paleo too.  But I figured the less I tote around my paleoness the better.  So let's just call these little muffins of love.  Okay never mind.  That's even worse.

I went to bed last night with every intention of going to the gym but this morning it was NOT going to happen.  Apparently I need to stop drinking afternoon caffeine.  I've been up 2 nights in a row until at least midnight trying to get my brain to stop thinking.  It just won't.  So I'm tired today and rambling.  And currently drinking tea.

Whenever I stay home on Tuesday/Thursday mornings though, I can never just rest.  I literally pulled myself out of bed at 9 and made myself some breakfast and got to work.  Lots of tidying, vacuuming, etc was going on.  And some baking.

After the holidays we ended up with a huge bag of carrots.   I love carrots, but honestly, they aren't my go to veg for meals.  However, what I like more than carrots lately is anything to do with the idea of carrot cake.  Prior to starting the paleo thing, I made carrot cake baked oatmeal and it was SO GOOD.  Thinking that there's got to be a way to make it Kelly-friendly I started searching the web last night and found a few recipes.  I finally snagged this one and got to work this morning.

The batter was a little thicker than I was expecting, but kept my fingers crossed and 25 minutes later was trying not to eat all 12.  These are delicious, full of good stuff, tastes just as good as your average junk filled muffin, but, dare I say it, are good for you?

Carrot Muffins

1 1/2 cups blanched almond flour
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 tablespoon cinnamon, plus more for sprinkling on top
3 eggs
2 tablespoons coconut oil, melted
1 ripe banana, mashed
2 tablespoons maple syrup or honey (optional)
1 1/2 cups carrots, grated
1/2 cup pecans, chopped


1.  Pre-heat oven to 325 and line a muffin tin or spray with coconut oil.

2.  Combine almond flour, seat salt, baking soda, and cinnamon in a medium bowl.

3.  Stir together coconut oil, banana and maple syrup, and eggs.

4.  Fold in pecans and carrots into the wet mixture.

5.  Add wet to dry

6.  Bake for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

7.  Try not to stuff your face and eat the whole batch

**My modifications:   I love cinnamon so you bet I upped that to a whole tbsp.  I also added some coconut shreds to the mix.  I think next time I would experiment with the spices in this one.  A little bit of nutmeg would have put these guys over the top!