Cute Muffins!

Hattie keeps asking me if we can bake cupcakes again. I've learned that this mostly means she will do some stirring and a whole lot of eating cupcakes and frosting. I'm not opposed to letting my kids eat sugar, but I thought it'd be reasonable (and yummy) to temper it with a few other ingredients, so we made these carrot-apple "cupcakes." (It's just a slightly modified version of this recipe from Williams Sonoma.)  

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 cup whole-wheat flour
• 2 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp ground cardamom
• 2 eggs
• 2/3 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
• 1/2 cup greek yogurt
• 1/2 cup grated apples
• 6 Tbs. (3/4 stick) unsalted butter, melted
• 2 large carrots, peeled and finely shredded (1 1/2 cups)
• 1/2 cup raisins, dried currants or golden raisins (optional)
• 1/2 cup chopped nuts - I used almonds, pumpkin seeds, and pecans, a bit of each.

Mix dry indgredients in one bowl and wet ingredients in another bowl; fold together just until they're mixed completely. We used mini muffin tins, so they baked for about 15 minutes at 425. And we made cream cheese frosting, which is basically just softened cream cheese mixed with confectioners sugar and a few drops of milk until it looks like frosting. 

Hattie picked the bright purple and turquoise blue food coloring! We had a bag of sliced almonds so we used those to make the flower petals, and a tiny chocolate candy for the middle of the flowers.