Carrot, coconut, cinnamon...and a wee bit of ginger too. :)

These little guys were rustled up today in my spare time…well we have just had our first (hoorah!) long-awaited glut of carrots from the garden…but I’m afraid I wasn’t permitted to use THEM in the featured cupcakes above, oh no. You see carrots were on offer this week in Aldi, so in the fridge we already had tonnes of these wonderful orange vegetables, and then just today daddy comes in through the back door of the house with his arms full of homegrown ones. Which we are having later on for dinner, btw – so it was up to me to use up those ones in the fridge, some way. Well, what better way than carrot cake? But hang on – these are even better than carrot cake…light scrumptious little cupcakes packed full of grated carrot, ginger, cinnamon..and one of my alltime favourite ingredients…dessicated coconut.

Ingredients

About 2 - 3 carrots, depending on size: you need approx 150 g worth of grated carrot. 

110 g soft light brown sugar

6 tbsp sunflower oil

30 g dessicated coconut 

1 large egg

1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp ground cinnamon

75 g self-raising flour

Pinch of salt

A little icing sugar for dusting

Method

 Line a muffin pan with 6 paper muffin cases. Preheat oven to 170/150c fan.

Sift the flour, bicarbonate, salt and spices into a small bowl.

Beat the egg in a separate bowl with a wooden spoon or electric mixer and add the oil and the sugar. Mix well once more until well blended.

Top and tail the carrots, peel and then coarsely grate them (ganache elf tip: prepare them just before you need them so you don’t need to worry about them going brown or storing in water to prevent that. ;)

Add the carrot, coconut, flour, bicarbonate, spices and salt to the egg mixture and fold in with a large metal spoon.

Carefully fill the muffin cases with the mixture (I usually pour straight from the bowl – but you can use a spoon if you would prefer…but the mixture is quite sloppy so be warned ;) ). Place the tray in the preheated oven and bake for about 20-25minutes, until well risen, light golden brown and springy to the touch.  

Leave in the tin for about 5 mins before removing carefully and placing on a wire rack to cool. dust with icing sugar before serving. They don't keep very long because they are so moist and are low in fat, so try to eat as fresh as possible - bit they should be fine kept in an airtight tin for up to four/five days. :)