My parents have an adorable little garden in their backyard this year. Basic and easy plants, tomatoes, cantaloupe, watermelon, carrots, green beans, onions, jalapenos, serranos, cucumber, and most importantly from my Moms perspective, zucchini. She absolutely loves zucchini, and always has as far as I can remember. She makes an amazing zucchini bread of her own, I decided I wanted to switch it up a bit and try something different. Since we have been trying to eat better as of late I needed a sweet treat that I didn't feel quite as guilty about indulging in. Chocolate Zucchini Muffins were born. I took a basic zucchini bread recipe and kind of morphed it into muffins. Let me know what you think!
Ingredients:
2 Eggs
1/2 c vegetable oil
1/2 c sugar
1/2 c brown sugar
2 tsp vanilla bean paste (or vanilla extract)
1/2 c zucchini, grated and drained
1 1/2 c flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 c cocoa powder
Palm full of chocolate chips or chocolate chunks
Grate your zucchini first and set aside. I put my grated zucchini into a collander usually and put a bowl underneath. Your zucchini will give a lot of liquid after it is grated, if you do not drain it your batter will be full of that liquid and will not set up correctly.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine eggs, oil, sugars, and vanilla paste in a large bowl. Mix well. Sift dry ingredients gradually into wet. Add drained zucchini and fold in very gently. Add chocolate chips. Scoop with a muffin scoop, ice cream scoop, or 1/4 c measuring cup into cupcake liners.Bake for 22 to 25 minutes.
