Culinary Guides

These muffins are how we use up a glut of garden carrots, and they happen to be good for you too. Almond meal, grated carrot, coconut, fresh ginger, and a little maple syrup give them just enough spice and just enough sweetness for a morning with hot coffee. Our favorite trick is to slice one in half, toast it, and spread it with coconut butter and a dusting of cinnamon.

Ingredients

• 2 cups blanched almond flour/almond meal
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/2 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
• 1 tablespoon freshly grated ginger
• 1 cup grated carrot
• 2 farm fresh eggs (or organic free-range eggs if possible)
• 1/2 cup coconut oil
• 1/2 cup pure maple syrup
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 3/4 cup raisins (soaked in water for 15 minutes and then drained)

Directions

1. Heat the oven to 350F (175C).
2. In a large bowl, whisk together the almond flour, baking soda, sea salt, ground ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, and shredded coconut.
3. In another bowl, stir together the eggs, melted coconut oil, grated fresh ginger, grated carrot, maple syrup, and vanilla until well combined.
4. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and stir gently, without overmixing. Fold in the soaked and drained raisins.
5. Grease a muffin tin with coconut oil or line it with papers. Fill each cup about three quarters full.
6. Bake 25 to 30 minutes, until golden and a toothpick comes out clean; start checking around 20 minutes.
7. Cool the muffins in the tin for 5 minutes, then move them to a wire rack to finish cooling so the bottoms stay dry.
8. Enjoy as they are, or slice, toast, and spread with coconut butter and a little cinnamon.

The muffins keep 3 days at room temperature or a week in the fridge, and they freeze well. Grate the carrot on the fine side of a box grater so it melts into the batter and keeps it moist.

Grower's tip: Sweet, tender carrots grate the best. Thin your seedlings early so each root has room to size up; carrots left crowded grow thin and fibrous and turn stringy when you grate them.

The best muffins start with the sweetest carrots, and those come from your own row. Plant a patch of carrot seeds in loose soil, keep it thinned, and bake through the harvest.