Carrot Cake Cookies

Oh yes, you heard me - carrots in cookies. Delicious and fluffy Carrot Cake Cookies. Seriously, these are totally the cookie incarnation of carrot cake. The carrots lend an excellent cake-like consistency to these cookies, as well as a natural sweetness so you won't need nearly as much sugar as you would for other oatmeal raisin type cookies!

What you'll need (Makes 3 dozen cookies)

• 240g unsalted butter (room temperature)
• 180g caster sugar
• 2 eggs
• 200g grated carrots
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 360g flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ground ginger
• 140g oats
• 200g raisins
• 100g walnuts (optional)

What to do:

Preheat your oven to 170C/340F.

Prepare the 200g of grated carrots. 2-3 large carrots should cover it.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the eggs, sugar, butter, and vanilla extract. Once thoroughly blended - no butter lumps! - add in the grated carrots. 

Mix the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and ginger together in a separate bowl. Gradually add this to the wet mixture, stirring as you go. Next gradually stir in the oats.

Finally, fold in the raisins and, if you want to include them, the walnuts.

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Then use a spoon to scoop rounded heaps of cookie dough, spaced evenly (leave at least an inch between each mound of dough), onto the baking sheet. Pop into the oven and bake for about 10 minutes, or until the cookies turn lightly golden brown on the top. 

Allow the cookies to cool for 2 minutes before removing from the baking sheet. And enjoy!

Eating your veggies with your cookies - sounds like a win to me, don't you agree? 

If you want slightly fancier cookies, these are excellent (and slightly sweeter) with a dollop of cream cheese frosting on top too!

Carrot Cranberry Bread

This is my first new recipe for the start of autumn this year - it's basically carrot cake's seasonally festive, slightly healthier cousin. I kept the added sugar fairly low here, letting the cranberries and carrots add the sweetness. I also used Greek yogurt instead of butter, which made for bread with a really nice and cakey consistency. Great with a morning coffee!

What you'll need:

• 250g grated carrots (3-4 medium sized carrots)
• 300g low fat plain Greek yogurt
• 340g flour
• 100g light brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp ginger
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• pinch of salt

What to do:

Preheat your oven to 170C/340F.

Spend an inordinate amount of time (not really...probably about 5 minutes, depending on your level of coordination) grating 3-4 carrots. Or rope someone into helping you. Unfortunately, no one else was there for me to Tom Sawyer into grating carrots. Seriously though people, is there a faster way of doing this? 

Hold a minor celebration when you are finished grating the carrots. Then, in a large mixing bowl, combine the eggs, Greek yogurt, light brown sugar, and vanilla extract. I used a hand powered mixer for this step. Once everything is thoroughly mixed, fold in the grated carrots.

In a separate bowl, mix together the dry ingredients - the flour, cinnamon, ginger, baking powder, baking soda, and just a pinch of salt. Once blended, gradually fold the dry mixture into the wet mixture. Make sure to smooth out any flour and/or sugar lumps.

Next, lightly grease a cake tin (I used a bundt tin, which baked nice and evenly) and pour the batter into it. Smooth down the top of the batter with a spatula, then pop into the oven. Bake for 35-40 minutes, until an inserted fork comes out clean.

Let cool for about 5 minutes before slicing. Enjoy the first slice while it's still warm!

If you find that you still have some bread left over after 2 days or so, it's also really nice toasted with a bit of cream cheese or honey spread on top.