Hello everyone and welcome to my new blog, Liv’s Little Muffins. My name’s Olivia, I’m a mom of two kiddos and today I’ve got my first recipe for you, healthier double chocolate zucchini muffins!
I’ve always enjoyed baking but over the past couple of years I’ve been more interested in baking healthy recipes as well so I can give it to my kids and know they’re not just eating a bunch of unhealthy fats and sugar. When researching recipes, I soon realized that often the recipe or specific combination of ingredients I had in mind wasn’t online anywhere. From there, I decided to just start making up my own recipes with lots of trials and errors.
The first 5-10 bakes didn’t go great, there’s just so much science in baking, but through learning from my mistakes each time and researching recipes, I slowly started getting the hang of it. I soon realized how much fun I was having creating recipes, from healthier muffins for me and my kids to eat for breakfast to scrumptious delicious desserts to bring to their grandparents every weekend. They’re my main taste testers along with my co-workers. Hubby isn’t into muffins or sweets for the most part, which I’ll never understand but to each their own hah!
Today, I’m so excited to be posting my first completed recipe! These double chocolate zucchini muffins are a muffin my son will actually eat (anything that has chocolate he’ll try). I love them as well cause he’s getting some veggies without even realizing it.
For another chocolate filled muffin, try my chocolate almond banana muffins. Or for other veggie packed muffins, try my cream cheese filled carrot muffins or my pumpkin oatmeal chocolate chip muffins.
When creating these zucchini muffins, I researched other healthier recipes and realized that the majority of them were made with all purpose flour instead of whole wheat flour. I started wondering why, thinking perhaps it was difficult to get a desirable texture. I took a chance and bought a giant bag of whole wheat flour from the grocery store and started creating healthier recipes with it. To this day, I don’t understand why people avoid it so much for healthier recipes. The recipes may need a little more moisture but otherwise, I generally can’t tell that a muffin has been made with whole wheat flour, nor can my taste testers. So expect to see whole wheat flour show up in pretty much all of my healthier recipes!
These zucchini muffins are great as I grate the zucchini up fine so it more or less dissolves into the muffin. This way, little toddler eyes hopefully won’t pick up on anything “yucky”. The addition of canola oil vs butter in this recipe keeps the muffins nice and moist while taking away all the unhealthy saturated fats from butter. Canola oil is my favourite oil to bake with as it’s high in unsaturated fats but also a “cheaper” oil with a neutral flavour.
Baking Tips:
- Don’t overmix the batter! Muffins are easy to overmix as it’s a thick batter so just fold it until you don’t see any big clumps of flour left.
- I prefer to finely grate the zucchini as it disappears more into the muffin when baked. This also makes it harder for little eyes to find it or notice it.
- I create my recipes based off weights so I recommend measuring by weights if you own a scale. It’s actually so much easier and makes for much less cleanup. I wish I had baked by weight from the beginning, I could never go back now.
An additional thing I’ll be adding to my posts besides a new recipe is a song that I love with a Youtube link. I love listening to music, especially while baking and I absolutely love discovering new music. I think this is a cool way that you guys can maybe hear a new song or one you’ve heard a hundred times but hopefully enjoy! So I can learn some new songs or bands as well, feel free to post a favourite song of yours in the comments!! I would love to hear what you guys like listening to or a band that you love! My song today is Live by the Water by Madisen Ward & the Mama Bear. They are so soothing and I could listen to them all day long! Post some of your favs in the comments section please! Happy baking and listening! **Disclaimer: Liv’s Little Muffins owns no rights to this song.
Don’t forget to leave a STAR REVIEW if you try my recipe! Follow me on Facebook or tag me on instagram @livslittlemuffins. Find more ideas on my Pinterest or Whisk.
Healthier Double Chocolate Zucchini Muffins
Ingredients
- 2 large eggs
- 1/3 cup (60g) canola oil (or other neutral oil)
- 1/2 cup (90g) brown sugar, packed
- 1 cup (220g) plain Greek yogurt I use 2%
- 1/4 cup milk (or milk of choice)
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 1/3 cup (160g) whole wheat flour
- 1/2 cup (50g) cocoa powder
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp instant espresso or coffee (optional, helps enhance chocolate flavour)
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 medium zucchini (about 1 1/4 cup) finely grated
- 1/3 cup (55g) white chocolate chips
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 425°F.
- In a large mixing bowl, whisk the eggs, oil, brown sugar, yogurt, milk and vanilla extract together until well combined.
- Place the finely grated zucchini on a clean tea towel or a triple layer of paper towels. Then squeeze all of the extra moisture out over the sink.
- Stir the zucchini into the wet ingredients.
- In a separate small mixing bowl, combine the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, coffee, if using, and salt.
- Pour the dry ingredients into the wet and gently fold until almost combined.
- Add in the white chocolate chips and fold until combined. Be sure not to overmix or your muffins will turn out very tough.
- Grease or line 12 cupcake tins and then divide the batter between them. The tins should be full.
- Bake for 7 minutes at 425℉, then drop the temperature to 350℉ and bake for an additional 12-14 minutes or until centre is set and a toothpick comes out clean.
- Allow the muffins to cool for 5 minutes in the pan, then remove to a wire rack to fully cool. Store in an airtight container for up to 2 days or in the freezer for up to 3 months.
