Evelyn and Anne: carrot and pineapple muffins

I don't know if its was a high school rebellion thing or what, but I never ate breakfast. As I've gotten older I had realized its importance. Call me weird but nowadays I go to bed thinking about what to have for breakfast the next morning. Who wouldn't love freshly baked bread, muffins, cakes, or pastries for breakfast? And its even better if you can make it the night before since most people don't have an hour to bake each morning. I have not had a muffin in a while so I thought I'd make some muffins for breakfast...or snacking.

Muffins straight out of the oven!

Having a muffin for breakfast seems like a healthy option until you read the ingredients and see its basically a cupcake. Unbleached flour, sugar, butter, eggs....not the best start to a morning. So the key was to make a muffin that won't make you bust a button on your pants. So when picking what type of fruit or vegetable to put in my muffins I wanted to stay in season, so most fruits were out. Oh how I wish it was spring when the strawberries are sweet and the blueberries are plentiful. But that's another story. So I was looking around the kitchen when I saw the carrots sitting at the bottom of my vegetable bin and got an idea. A variation on zucchini bread muffins but with carrots? Kinda like a carrot cake...but healthy. And why not throw in some pineapple for acidity. While pineapples are best in the spring most grocery stores carry them year round and you could even use the canned variety.

I used a combination of brown rice flour and garbanzo bean flour, which have more nutrients and protein than regular white flour. Not to mention no chemicals. Flaxseeds, coconut oil, and agave nectar make these muffins so delicious and healthy you won't even feel guilty if you eat two! Each muffin has over 1/2 a tablespoon of flaxseed (yay for fiber!), less than 1/2 a tablespoon of oil per muffin, and 1 tbsp of agave per muffin. These muffins are moist, light, but best eaten within 24 hours as gluten free items tend to go stale faster.

I did add a slightly sweet and tangy lemon glaze on top of these muffins made from lemon juice, rice milk, and confectioners sugar. After dipping the muffins in the glaze I let them sit for 10 minutes so the glaze could harden. Without the glaze these muffins are sugar free and still great. But I thought the glaze gave a nice tang and brightness to the muffin. Totally optional.