Spiced Caramel Apple Carrot Mini Muffins and Fresh Fruit Kebabs

Makes approximately 40 mini muffins (20 kebabs).

Ingredients:

1 package 20-count 8” cookie sticks

1 cup organic white flour

¾ cup organic oat flour

⅓ cup organic cane sugar

2 slightly rounded teaspoons of baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

¼ teaspoon finely ground sea salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

¼ teaspoon nutmeg

¼ teaspoon ginger

3 small organic sweet carrots

½ cup sunflower oil

1 large organic free-range egg

⅓ cup naturally sweetened applesauce

½ cup organic whole milk

1 teaspoon organic vanilla extract

2 medium apples (1 ½ cups of diced apples)

2-3 tablespoons of Spiced Caramel (recipe below)

1 ripe cantaloupe

1 package of organic strawberries, 16-ounce

Shortcut: use jarred baby food instead of homemade puréed carrots and/or buy prepared caramel sauce.

Instructions:

Prepare Spiced Caramel (recipe below) in advance.
Preheat oven to 350F.
Grease mini muffin pans.
Sift the dry ingredients together in a large mixing bowl (flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger). Set it aside.
Wash, peel and chop carrots into 2”chunks. Boil them until they’re soft (about 10 minutes).
In the meantime, in a separate bowl whisk the egg, applesauce, milk and vanilla until creamy.
Purée the boiled carrots in a food processor with the oil until it’s a smooth consistency (it should be about 1 cup of purée).
Add the carrot purée to the liquid mixture and whisk together.
Peel, core and dice apples (should be 1 ½ - 2 cups of diced apples).
Make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients.
Add the liquid mixture into the well of the dry ingredients and blend together.
Fold in the diced apples.
Drizzle 2-3 tablespoons of Spiced Caramel into the batter, and fold it in further so there are ribbons of caramel in the batter.
With a teaspoon, fill the muffin holes ¾ full with the batter.
Put immediately into the oven, and bake for 14 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
Let them cool a little on a wire rack.
Reheat the Spiced Caramel in a microwave if necessary, and lightly drizzle ribbons of it on top of the muffins.
Let the caramel set for a few minutes. Meanwhile, prepare the fruit for the kebabs.
Wash and cut the cantaloupe into 2” chunks. Set them aside in a bowl.
Rinse the strawberries and cut the tops off of them. Cut large strawberries in half, and leave medium to small ones whole. Set them aside in a separate bowl.
When the muffins are cooled, but still warm, and the caramel is no longer dripping, begin to assemble the kebabs by layering fruit with mini muffins (e.g. strawberry, mini muffin, cantaloupe, mini muffin) taking care not to puncture the last (top) muffin all the way through.
Serve kebabs immediately (you can display them in a cup stuffed with colorful tissue paper or hand them out individually as they are made).