Chocolate Chip Zucchini Muffins
For some reason, I have never, until this VERY moment, made zucchini bread. I enjoy eating it, or at least I did, in my past life when I ate gluten-y things. But for some reason, I've never taken on a GF version. My hunch is you'll love this doubly-chocolatey version for breakfast, snack, or dessert, especially because we bake them in to portable, single-serving muffins!
This was sort of a “wing it” experiment, since I wasn’t sure of the dry/wet ratio I would need with the zucchini included. The batter seemed quite thick to me, and it seemed like a ton of zucchini was in there before going in the oven. Of course it’s too late at that point to turn around, so I stuck the loaf in the oven and hoped for the best.
It turns out that zucchini bread is pretty forgiving, just like banana bread, so we got lucky here. The surprising result of my experiment were moist (but not mushy) perfectly dark-chocolatey muffins that barely had a trace of visible zucchini, and certainly not tastable, if that makes sense. Bonus micronutrients hidden inside something yummy!
What You'll Need:
- 2 large eggs at room temp
- 1/2 cup coconut sugar
- 1/4 cup organic coconut oil melted and cooled to almost room temp
- 1/4 cup smooth almond butter unsalted
- 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 1 1/2 cups blanched almond flour
- 6 Tbsp raw cacao powder or unsweetened cocoa
- 1/4 tsp fine grain sea salt
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 2-3 small medium zucchini peeled if desired and finely shredded (1 and 3/4 -2 cups gently packed, water squeezed out between paper towels)
- 1/2 cup chocolate chips homemade or Enjoy Life brand
What I Did:
- Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and spray a muffin tin with coconut oil spray
Combine the almond flour, cacao or cocoa powder, baking soda and salt
In a different bowl, whisk or blend together the coconut oil, almond butter, coconut sugar, eggs and vanilla until well combined and smooth
Add the dry ingredients to the wet until just moistened (batter should be preeeetty thick) then fold in the shredded zucchini, then the chocolate chunks
Transfer batter to the muffin tins and bake until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean, 20-30 minutes
Cool the muffins in the tin for 10-15 minutes, then gently remove them by flipping a wire rack on top. Store leftovers in the refrigerator for up to 5 days. Enjoy!