Recipe: Carrot Cake Breakfast Bakes

I'm a huge carrot cake fan - always have been. I don't know what it is about it, I just love it. 

Carrot cake is one of those faux healthy cakes - they get you with the carrot. You're thinking "carrots? well that's got to be better than chocolate cake!" ....not necessarily. This carrot cake breakfast cake, however, is completely healthy - so you can eat it for breakfast! 

As you may already know, I'm obsessed with breakfast bakes at the moment - so it was only natural I created a carrot cake breakfast bake! 

I love these bakes topped with cream cheese (mixed with a dash of maple syrup for extra flavour) with a sprinkle of walnuts mixed into the batter. Heaven. Trust me, you'll feel like you're eating the most indulgent breakfast when it is completely and utterly healthy. 

This is one of those breakfasts where I turn to Jesse and say "shucks, healthy eating is so hard..." with 110% sarcasm. But enough chatter from me, you want the recipe - don't you?!

Carrot Cake Breakfast Bakes - makes 6 breakfast bakes

gluten free, low fat, clean eating friendly, refined sugar free, freezer friendly

2 cups grated carrot (I used about 3 carrots, finely grated in my Tefal Fresh Express)

1 cup milk of choice 
1 cup unsweetened applesauce 
1/2 cup Simply Egg Whites or 1 egg + 1 tbsp applesauce
1/2 cup cottage cheese (if you don't have/like cottage cheese, you can also use plain greek yogurt or ricotta!)
2 tsp vanilla 
1 1/2 cups oatmeal, ground into oat flour (GF oats if you're gluten free)
1 cup gluten free plain flour/plain flour/buckwheat flour/wholewheat flour
1/2 cup ground flaxseed/chia seed
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp cinnamon 
1 tsp mixed spice 

optional: 1/4 cup maple syrup/honey (if you like things sweet), walnuts, pecans, raisins, mix-ins of your choice. 

Preheat oven to 190°C/375°F. 
Grease and/or line 6 single serve ramekins/baking dishes/mini springform tins (my favourite and the easiest for breakfast bakes).
In a bown, mix your carrot, milk, applesauce, egg whites, cottage cheese, spices and vanilla until combined (and maple syrup/honey if using). 
In a large mixing bowl, combine your flour, oat flour, ground flax and baking powder. 
Pour your wet ingredients into your dry ingredients and mix until combined.
Bake for 20-30 minutes or until your bakes have cooked through and a skewer inserted removes clean. 

Serve warm, chill in the fridge or freeze for a quick breakfast when you need it. It is highly recommended that you top them with some reduced fat cream cheese before eating them though ;) 

Pssst: I've just been told by my nutritionist friend that these breakfast bakes actually have around 15g of protein in each bake (not including added extras).

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But tell me, what's your current favourite breakfast?
I think mine is a little obvious... 

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