Carrot-Parsnip Muffins
December 3, 2011 in Hidden Veggies, Muffins and Coffee Cakes
This recipe starts with the carrot cake recipe that my mom found in the archives while doing a paper on traditional French Canadian cuisine for a college paper. The original recipe is approximately 400 years old. Over the last few years, I have played with this recipe to make it healthier, even substituting parsnip for some of the sugar (inspired by episode of Alton Brown’s Good Eats focused on sneaking vegetables into kids’ diets). Now, with my desire to get my girls eating paleo, I have played with this recipe even more. Although the ingredients vary substantially from the original recipe, the flavor and texture are remarkably preserved. Everyone in my family loves these muffins. They are probably my toddler’s favorite food! Yield: 1 dozen
Ingredients:
- 4 eggs
- 1/3 cup brown sugar/sucanat
- 2 Tbsp extra virgin coconut oil, melted
- 1 ½ cups grated parsnip (approximately 1 large)
- 1 ½ cups grated carrot
- 1 ½ cups blanched almond flour
- 1 Tbsp coconut flour
- ¾ tsp baking soda
- ½ tsp cream of tartar
- ½ tsp vanilla
- ½ tsp allspice
- ¼ tsp ground ginger
- ¼ tsp cardamom
- 1 tsp nutmeg
- Optional: add ½ cup chopped walnuts
1. Preheat oven to 350F. Grease a muffin pan.
2. Grate parsnip and carrot finely. I like to just pulse them in a food processor until finely ground.
3. Combine eggs, parsnip, carrot, oil, sugar and vanilla in a large bowl. Stir to form a batter.
4. Combine almond flour, coconut flour, baking soda, cream of tartar and spices in a small bowl.
5. Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and stir until combined into a very thick batter. Fold in walnuts, if using.
6. Spoon into muffin cups and bake for 35 minutes.
7. Let cook a few minutes in the muffin pan before removing. Enjoy!
Do you need help finding any ingredients? Check out Important Pantry Items for the Paleo Baker.
Hey Sarah – love your posts and the info you send out there BUT I am really struggling to see your recipes with the emphasis on sugar and how they can be paleo/primal? It’s not just you (just happened to be reading your blog tonight, it’s raining in Yorkshire and we built a fire but I digress)! I see this more and more on other sites plugging buns and cookies and frosting and cakes and treats and cheat days and there just feels to be a blurring……just a thought but would love to know the answer? warm regards from the UK, Katie
Thank you so much for your comment, Katie! I completely agree with you that part of eating paleo/primal is also eating low carb. But, even the strictest paleo diet guru will allow for an occasional treat (seems like the definition of occasional varies quite a bit, of course!). I personally don’t eat many of these sweet recipes. They are more geared for my kids (and while no one seems to want to commit to exactly how many more carbs kids need, it is generally agreed that those growing brains need more glucose than we do). You’re right that alot of people (me included) are paleofying recipes and including more sugar than optimal. I think there is a need for the types of recipes though. While eating too many sugary paleo treats might completely derail one persons efforts, they also can keep someone struggling with a feeling of deprivation committed to Paleolithic nutrition. They also help folks new to paleo/primal ease into it.
Well, a lot of experts can agree on something and still be wrong. I would say that when a child is nursing they have some need for sugar, otherwise there wouldn’t be so much lactose in human milk. But at some point you’ve got to consider that back in the Ice Age they wouldn’t have had much access to sugar in winter, especially after weaning–and yet they had bigger brains than kids do today. So what grew those brains? Fat, probably. We make the amount of glucose that we actually need, a point that I wish would be more heavily emphasized in the Paleo community–I see a trend toward people talking up “safe starches” and the health benefits of sugar and it makes me really sad. The actual data do not bear those things out. The more starch and sugar a traditional population had in their diets, the less healthy they were, overall.
I should also add that I’ve been planning a post just about sugar intake. Maybe I’ll get that one up sooner rather than later! Thanks again for starting an interesting discussion!
Hi….ok but I fundamentally disagree. You are simply keeping a sugar addiction going and perhaps I would argue that if people are feeling deprived eating paleo then that is because of this (sugar) and paleofying recipes is diluting the whole point of going paleo (did our ancestors eat ginger frosted muffin cookies) – the answer is surely to up the fat intake which I know from experience will give an enormous sense of satisfaction and wellbeing and as for the argument regarding carbs for growing brains I would argue that sugar is a horrible way of getting carbs into kids? Oops rant over – great to open discussion up? Katie
LOL! Rants can either open up a discussion or close it, depending on who you’re talking to.
There are different recommendations for carbohydrate intake depending on your goals. Generally, if you’re trying to lose weight, it’s best to stay under about 30g per day. If you’re a healthy weight and active, you can safely consume about 100g a day without increasing oxidative stress or messing with your insulin and hunger hormones. Of course, carb quality is important and the best sources are whole, organic vegetable and maybe some fruit. But even the complex starches in yams boil down to approximately half fructose and half glucose… the same ratio as table sugar.
I agree that loading children full of sugar is never a good thing (whether in a paleo framework or not). And I absolutely do not feed my girls tons of sugar. These muffins are a good example. Each muffin contains about 12.6g of carbohydrates, less than half of this comes from the sugar itself (the rest is from the flours and veggies), Of that 12.6g of carbs, 2.3g are actually from fiber and only 7g are sugars (the rest are starches). I would argue that, given the protein from the eggs and almonds, the vegetable content from the parsnips and carrots, that this is a very good food to give a picky toddler.
Regardless, you have hit upon an important point, and that is that more education regarding the detrimental effects of high carbohydrate intake is needed.
Starch will turn into glucose. It’s sugar, it just hasn’t been broken down yet. (Although, fiber is also sugar, but the reason that doesn’t matter is we don’t make cellulase.) Now, with all that in mind, these muffins ARE really low-carb. So that’s good.
Well, our ancestors may not have been eating ginger frosted muffins, but they were missing out! My husband and I definitely enjoyed this recipe, and while my kids were a little hesitant, they did eat them and liked them. I’d say it’s a keeper!
-Jennifer K.
These look great, thanks for posting them! I agree(and my kids very naturally minded pediatrician agrees) that the kids need more carbs, not just fats/proteins. Just making the decision to go Paleo, although we have been very healthy, low carb eaters for awhile now. Love reading your blog
These do look awesome. I use raw honey in place of sugars in most recipes.
Thanks Ryanne! Good luck with your transition to Paleo!
Rachel-You can definitely try these with honey. You might need to add a bit more flour to balance out the liquid. Let me know how it works for you!
I’m anxious to try out this recipe! I’m thinking a sub for the sugar may be a date paste mixed with some applesauce if it’s too thick. Thanks for the recipe idea!
Let us know how your substitution works!
I made these muffins yesterday, and they were a hit! I was surprised since parsnips didn’t sound great in a muffin.
In response to the commenters who are really concerned about carbs, I would argue that 10g of digestible carbs in a muffin is not a disaster. I get and agree with the possibility of people using something like this as a crutch to keep eating too many carbs. I think that is currently a big problem with sweet potatoes, which half of the Paleo community seems to think have magic carbs that don’t count. But I found this recipe looking for snacks for my kids. My kids are about 2/3 paleo, and don’t have any fat on them. These muffins don’t contain anything that is likely to cause inflammation or digestion problems, and certainly contain no gluten. Finding a snack bar that isn’t garbage is almost impossible. And even Larabars, which are gluten and soy free, contain 23g of carbs! Twice as many as one of these muffins.
So let’s keep it in perspective.
Will honey work? I’m trying not to bring any really scary (for me) ingredients in my house.
probably, if you add some extra dry ingredients
I made these today and they’re so tasty! It looks like, from the comments, that you had calculated the nutrition information for these? Could you share that with me/us?
I only calculated carbs to reply to that one comment and do not have any other nutritional information these.
Gotcha. I’ll calculate it. Thanks for the info!