Not everyone are happy to spend their time in the kitchen before Christmas, but everyone likes to eat something homemade and delicious. If you’re this kind of person, or you simply absolutely don’t have time for Christmas baking, this recipe is for you. Moreover, if your on a ketogenic diet or you’re diabetic, and you feel like you’ll need to suffer all Christmas struggling with forcing yourself not to eat sweets, this recipe will be exactly what you need! (also take a look on my other Christmas cake recipe: coconut and orange cake)

These carrot and cinnamon cupcakes are: made with no flour, gluten free and low in sugar, as I’ve used xylitol instead of regular sugar. With couple cheap ingredients and a little bit of your creativity, you can prepare yummy Christmas cupcakes for all the family and friends.

Why you’ll need baking soda and baking powder?

I never remember which one I should use: baking soda or baking powder, so decided to finally make my research and hopefully now I will remember which raising agent I should use and when. So if you’re, also interested, keep reading.

The use of coconut flour and lots of carrots makes the muffin batter very heavy and quite wet. Heavy ingredients thanks to baking soda are lifted at the initial stage of mixing the batter, and during baking this process is enhanced by the effect of baking powder. This prevents from making slack-baked or underbaked cake. In this case it worked perfectly. Baking with coconut flour, like in this recipe or that one makes the cake very dense, but these cupcakes are perfectly fluffy and light like with regular wheat flour.

Baking soda:

causes the batter to rise thanks to the carbon dioxide it produces. Acid is also required for the chemical reaction to produce bubbles. Therefore, baking soda works well for baked goods to which acidic ingredients are added, such as cream, buttermilk, butter, cocoa, honey, molasses, lemon or orange juice or sour fruit. These ingredients also promote the rapid release of sodium carbonate, so that finished cake is doesn’t have unpleasant smell and taste. When baking soda is combined with acidic ingredients, there is an immediate reaction of releasing carbon dioxide and rising, therefore cakes made with baking soda should be baked immediately after combining the loose ingredients with liquid ingredients, preferably at a temperature of at least 200 degrees C. Of course, there are exceptions. If we use too much soda or too few acidic ingredients in relation to the amount of soda, it will cause the dough to have an unpleasant smell and aftertaste. When baking with baking soda, you should be aware of cracks on the top of your baked goods. This is due to the rapid rising of the dough in the first phase of preparation.

Baking powder:

is a product consisting of several substances that act as raising agents, triggers and stabilizers, including baking soda. Triggers are essential because sodium bicarbonate serves its raising role in combination with acidic compounds. Additionally, triggers eliminate unpleasant aftertaste and smell, which is left behind by sodium bicarbonate after baking. Baking powder is used to bake heavy cakes containing a large amount of fat and sugar.
Baking powder works throughout the entire preparation process, which means that the raising reaction takes place both when it is mixed with liquid ingredients and during baking.

So simply:

• use baking soda when you bake cakes with acidic ingredient, such as lemon juice, buttermilk or yogurt
• use baking powder when the recipe doesn’t feature an acidic ingredient, as the powder already includes the acid needed to produce carbon dioxide
• use both when your cake is made with heavy ingredients and maybe difficult to rise, but do not overuse them.

Now when we sorted it out, we can start baking this yummy, flavorsome carrot and cinnamon cupcakes. I did my best not to make cream cheese look like a poo 😉

carrot & cinnamon cupcakes (no flour and low sugar)

NOTE: my measuring cup is 250ml regular glass

INGREDIENTS (for 8 cupcakes):

• 3 large eggs
• about 3-4 carrots
• 1½ cup coconut flour
• ½ tsp baking soda
• ½ tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• ¼ tsp nutmeg
• ¼ tsp natural rock salt
• 2 tbsp clarified butter (melted)
• about 5 tbsp xylitol or other sugar alternative
• cream cheese for decoration
• tangerine

DIRECTIONS

Start with carrots – grate them finely, and leave aside.

Beat eggs and xylitol using handheld mixer until fluffy and light. Then start adding dry ingredients: coconut flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, spices, also melted butter. Mix until no coconut flour lumps remain. At the and add grated carrots and give it a good stir with a spatula or a spoon. Batter will be quite thick. Set aside, heat the oven to 180°C and prepare muffin tray.

If you have ready made muffin liners – you’re good to go. If not, you can make your own muffin liners with baking paper. Simply cut baking paper in squares, give them a liner shape using a cup or a glass. Pop them into the muffin tray and you’re ready to bake (for more kitchen swaps click here).

Put about a heaped spoon to each liner, so you’ll have about 8 medium size muffins. If you want them to be quite big, or you want more than 8, you’ll definitely need to double or triple the amount of ingredients. Bake for about 20 minutes.

After baking you can take them out of the oven straight away. Leave to cool down completely. If you have the special piping bag and nozzles, you can make some nice decoration with cream cheese (cupcakes are sweet enough for me, so I didn’t add any sugar to cream cheese, but if you feel like it will be not enough sweet for you, simply beat cream cheese with some xylitol). If you don’t have piping bag, like me, just take a plastic bag, place couple spoons of cream cheese in the corner of it, cut of the corner tip and squeeze it on the cupcake trying your best, not to make it look like a poo 😉

At the end, wash tangerine under hot water, cut in pieces and decorate each cupcake.
They are ready to serve!
Enjoy!