Every week or two I make a gigantic batch of these in the blender. Both the 11 month old and the 3.5 year old love them. They feel like they’re eating cake, but the sweetness is all from fruit. I like them, too, with a little cream cheese or maple syrup.
It’s a forgiving enough recipe that if you want to swap out some carrot with zucchini or banana with applesauce, it still comes out fine. I eyeball most of the measurements with the markings on the blender so that I have fewer dishes afterward.
2 cups whole wheat flour (I usually replace at least half of this with almond meal or quinoa flour, for a variety of protein)
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup sunflower or coconut oil
1/2 cup dried dates, seeded and finely chopped into a paste (unless you have a serious blender, then you can skip the chopping)
3 ripe bananas (1 1/4 cups)
1 1/2 cups grated carrots (about 3 medium) (again, if you’ve got a Vitamix or something, you can just roughly chop instead of grating them)
1/2 cup yogurt (Greek is ideal, but whatever you have is fine)
2 eggs
splash of vanilla
Preheat oven to 350F. Line a muffin tin. This will make about 15 regular muffins, but I usually stretch it to 12 muffins and 24 mini muffins.
Sift together the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt.
In Vitamix, combine the bananas and carrots, dates, and oil. Add in the yogurt and the eggs. Add the flour mixture and stir until everything just comes together. Spoon into the prepared muffin tins.
Bake for about 25-30 minutes (or 15ish minutes for mini muffins) or until a toothpick tests clean in the center of the cake.
They only keep for a couple of days on the counter, but they’ll keep for a week in the fridge.