More Muffin Mania

My dancing dogs are barking!

The Carolina Chocolate Drops had me on my feet until 11:30 last night.

Have you heard these recent Grammy winners?  This string band puts on a great show with lots of audience interaction and shining charisma.  They play mostly old-time traditional southern string band tunes with a few modern hits thrown in.   One of the highlights of the show was Adam Matta and his beat-boxing wizardry.   Check out this mix of “Irish mouth music” and beat-box!

It was so much fun to see a big live show!  It’s been a long time, like since before we moved to Peru!

My legs might also be feeling my run yesterday, I set out for 5 miles but took a wrong turn and ended up completing 5.7!  I seem to have a habit of doing that…

FYI, yoga was delicious yesterday.  Upon returning from my run I flowed through 20 minutes of salutations with a few favorite poses thrown in at the end (Half Moon!).  The first few minutes were really distracted but after that I was able to drop into being present and enjoying what I was doing instead of being preoccupied with what else I could be doing (my main roadblock on the mat these days, when I actually get on the mat).

I promised you muffins this morning so muffins I will deliver.

Inside Out Carrot Cake Muffins

Prep

Preheat oven to 365* F

Butter and flour 6 cups of a muffin tin

Place 1 cup of plain yogurt (I used organic nonfat) to strain.

Soak 1/4 cup raisins in 1/4 cup of water for at least 15 minutes before you start in on the batter.

The Wet

• soaked raisins and soaking water
• 1.5 cups unsweetened applesauce
• 1 egg
• 1 cup grated carrots

Process raisins and water in a food processor for 1 minute.  Add applesauce and process for another minute.  Add egg and process until completely mixed (~15 seconds).  Pour mixture into a bowl and add grated carrots.

The Dry

• 1 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1.5 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp each ground cinnamon and ginger

Whisk all ingredients together in a bowl.

The Filling

• 1 cup strained yogurt
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• stevia to taste

Mix all ingredients together in a bowl.

To Make

• pour dry into wet and stir just enough to mix throughly
• put a heaping spoonful of batter into the bottom of each muffin cup
• with a wet spoon, make an indent in each batter pile

• fill indents with a spoonful of yogurt filling
• top with another big dollop of batter (it may be helpful to use clean hands here the scrap the batter off the spoon and cover the filling)

Place in pre-heated oven and bake for 22 minutes.  Once out of the oven leave in tin for 5 minutes or so to cool before removing onto a cooling rack.

Filled with frosting-like goodness!

(Note: this was my second batch, where I used a flax egg instead of a real egg.  The egg produced better results so I went back to it for the post but I forgot to take a picture of the cross section.  These ones fell and were a little dense :(. )

These muffins are free of refined sugar and loaded with vitamins A and C and fiber.  They are about 175 calories a piece and are great with coffee (what isn’t?).

Have a delightful weekend!