Carrot & coconut cupcakes with lemon yoghurt frosting
Deliciously light and fresh cupcakes with carrots, applesauce and desicated coconut.
Ingredients
- 1 cup finely grated carrots about 200g
- 1/2 cup applesauce
- 1/3 cup oil canola or olive
- 2 tsp vanilla essence
- 1 tbsp vinegar white wine or apple cidar
- 1/4 cup desiccated coconut
- 1 1/2 cups All-purpose flour sifted
- 1/2 tsp baking soda or sub with 1 tsp baking powder
- pinch of salt
- 2 tsp cinnamon
- 1/2 cup granulated sweetener, xylitol, or sugar
Lemon yoghurt frosting
- 1/2 cup plain yoghurt a thick Greek-style yoghurt will work well
- 1/2 cup plain smooth cottage cheese or low-fat cream cheese see notes for vegan alternative
- zest of 1 lemon
- 1 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
- 1 tbsp granulated sweetner, xylitol or sugar
- Optional - nuts for decorating e.g. walnuts
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 180 C fan. Spray a muffin pan with non-stick spray or line with cupcake liners.
- Mix the carrots, applesauce, oil, vinegar, vanilla, and coconut together in a medium bowl.
- Combine the rest of the ingredients in a separate bowl, then gently combine the two mixtures. Be careful to not overbeat the batter.
- Spoon the batter into the muffin pan and bake for 20 minutes, or until a knife inserted into the center comes out clean.
- Allow the cupcakes to cool before removing from the pan.
- Combine all of the frosting ingredients together and beat until smooth. Taste, and add more lemon juice / sweetener if necessary. Then frost your cupcakes! Place a walnut in the center of each cupcake if you want to be fancy.
Notes
Nutritional info per cupcake (assuming xylitol is used as sweetener,): 183 kcal; 9.7 g fat; 19.2 g carbohydrate; 1.6 g fiber; 5 g protein.
The cupcakes are vegan. To make the frosting vegan, you can use 1 cup of coconut yoghurt instead of the yoghurt + cottage cheese. Or you can use any other vegan frosting recipe.