Muffins or Cupcakes? I say Cupcakes!

Sure, I go on and on about changing what I eat, so I can try to be healthy. Then I make something like this! Well, I said the reason I was trying to eat healthy was so I can do stuff like this. A co-worker was celebrating a birthday so there needed to be cupcakes! And these are healthy...banana, carrot, raisins...and the icing does have low fat cream cheese.


Banana Carrot Muffins
(from the Magnificent Muffins Cookbook by way of the Well Fed Network)

Dry Mixture
1 ½ cups all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
½ tsp nutmeg
1 pinch ground cloves
½ cup raisins

Moist Mixture
2 large eggs
½ cup lightly packed brown sugar
½ cup vegetable oil
½ cup buttermilk
1 tsp vanilla extract
½ cup mashed banana
1 cup grated carrot

Preheat oven to 400° F and prepare 12 muffin cups. In a large bowl, combine the dry mixture. In a medium bowl beat eggs lightly and combine with the moist mixture. Add the moist mixture to the dry mixture all at once and stir just until moist but still lumpy. Fill the prepared muffin cups ¾ full. Bake for 16-20 minutes. I opted to frost these, but they keep better and are quite good plain as well.


For the cream cheese icing:
1/2 a block of cream cheese
3 TB butter
1 1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp lemon juice

Mix with a hand mixer until smooth and creamy.