For the past couple of years, I’ve experimented with living sugar free. And by sugar free, I don’t mean using sugar-free syrups and so-called “diabetic friendly” sweeteners. I mean, adding zero sugar or sugar substitutes to my food.
Therefore, when my 35th birthday came around this year, I wanted some no-sugar-added carrot cupcakes and my culinary hubby was happy to oblige. We started with a recipe for a baby’s smash cake that I found on Things for Boys and changed it up just a bit to make it more adult-friendly. Here’s the result:
And here’s our adapted recipe:
Sugar-free Carrot and Date Cupcakes (makes 8″ cake or 12 cupcakes)
Ingredients:
- 1 2/3 cup plain flour
- 3 tsp baking powder
- 1 stick butter, melted
- 1 tsp ground nutmeg
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon (we substituted 2 tsp pumpkin pie spice for both nutmeg & cinnamon)
- 5 oz dates, finely chopped
- 4 oz raisins
- 2 oz shredded coconut (we used fresh coconut but you could also use a package)
- 1/3 cup walnuts
- 1 cup grated carrot (about 1 large carrot)
- 2 tbsp milk (we used Westsoy unsweetened vanilla soy milk)
- 2 eggs, lightly beaten
- Plain Greek yogurt for topping (optional)
Preheat oven to 300°F. Lightly grease your cake or muffin pan.
Sift the flour, baking powder and ground spices together. Make sure it’s evenly combined. Stir in the dates and coconut.
Combine the melted butter, raisins, carrot and milk. Add to the dry ingredients and mix gently until evenly combined. You should have a very thick mixture. Add the eggs and give it a good stir.
Spoon into the prepared pan and bake for 45 – 60 minutes (about 30 mins for cupcakes) until toothpick comes out clean.
Remove from the oven and allow to cool for 5 minutes, then turn onto a wire rack to cool completely.
Enjoy as they are, or scoop a dollop of plain Greek yogurt on top for a creamier mouth feel.
