Paleo Carrot Cake Muffins and Orange, Maple Keto Coffee

Carrot cake is straight up my jam!  Hands down, best cake!  I love the sweet and spice!  I would eat it all the time if it was available.  

Given my  new gluten free life, I have had to make some sacrifices and cake is one of them.  Just this past weekend at my nephews birthday party I was forced to pass on the delicious Mickey Mouse cake.  As hard as that was I was just glad I didn't have to say no to carrot cake.  That would have just been tough.  Avoidance has been my main course of action.  Recently though I just had a craving for carrot cake.  Maybe it was the fall weather but something made me think of it and that led to a google search... "Gluten free carrot cake recipe"

Low and behold I found a really good one and we had all the ingredients so I decided to do some baking.  I usually don't bake, that is more Laura's area of expertise!  Measuring is tough!  I did it though and this muffins turned out awesome!  The recipe that I found and tweaked was on a website, Primarily Inspired.  Hats off to Kelly for the inspiration for this recipe!  We just did the muffin/cupcake recipe but she has an icing that goes along with these too if you want it to be even more desserty, that's a word right???  

The following morning Laura was scrolling her IG feed and stumbled across a pic from a local coffee shop and how they do a Orange, Maple Latte.  She tried hard to convince me to drive 30 minutes to go get a coffee.  I fought hard and told her I would just make her one instead.  Since we don't really do dairy either we opted for a "keto coffee."  Although given the maple syrup in it, we probably can't call it a "keto" coffee but oh well you get the idea, it has butter in it and other delicious things.  This was super simple and super tasty.  I have no idea how it compares the the coffee shop latte but we will do this again.  It paired perfectly with the carrot muffins too.  Pure breakfast bliss!  

Paleo Carrot Cake Muffins

Ingredients

• 2 1/2 cups grated carrots (about 3-4 large carrots) - I used a little less than the original recipe and this was still a lot of carrot - Eat your veggies!!!
• 8-10 pitted medjool dates finely chopped by hand or in a food processor
• 4 eggs
• ¼ cup melted coconut oil
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• ½ cup coconut flour 
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• ½ teaspoon ground cloves
• pinch of salt

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Grate the carrots using a food processor or box grater and set aside.  
   
3. Chop the dates. If using food processor to "chop" the dates pulse 3-4 times, enough to chop but not too much that it turns into a giant date ball.  
4. In a separate bowl combine the dry ingredients (coconut flour, spices, baking powder, salt) and whisk to evenly incorporate the spices.  
5. In a mixing separate bowl, add in your chopped dates, eggs, coconut oil and vanilla. Beat mixture well.
   
6. Add dry ingredients and stir until combined.
7. Fold in the grated carrots.
8. Fill muffin batter to the top of each muffin pan and bake for 25-28 minutes or until inserted toothpick comes out clean. 

Orange, Maple Keto Coffee

Ingredients

• 1 large cup of coffee
• 1 tbsp grass fed butter
• 1 drop of orange essential oil
• 2 tsp real maple syrup

Directions

1. Add all of your ingredients to high powered blender.   Blend on high for 15 seconds, making sure that the seal on the blender top is not super tight and you allow the steam to release.  If you don't do this bad things happen.  You've been warned.