“Can I have a muffin?”
“You can…” I tell him, “But I need to take a photo for my blog, so you’ll have to do the muffin pose.”
Without hesitation he grabs a muffin and assumes the ‘muffin pose’. I snap a few photos and then off he goes to stuff a chocolate and zucchini muffin into his face.
My kids have totally got this blogging thing down. They know what the muffin pose is (see the image below) and they know that if they let me snap a few photos of the food, or the activity, they reap the benefits.
In this case the benefits are these totally delicious gooey chocolate zucchini muffins!
At this time of year I usually have so many zucchinis growing in my garden that the kids start saying ‘is there zucchini in this too???’, but this year my zucchinis have not grown so well and we’ve only picked a handful so far.
It’s depressing!
So when I found two small zucs hiding under the leaves yesterday I was rather excited. But what should I do with them??
Should I make zucchini bake, carrot and zucchini muffins, maybe lemon and zucchini muffins, or perhaps easy cheese and potato zucchini bake?
In the end the kid’s called for chocolate and so chocolate zucchini muffins it was.
These muffins are easy to make, and you can substituent ingredients without too much hassle. We use wholemeal flower, coconut oil and brown sugar, but you could easily use plain white flour, butter, and coconut sugar, or even honey.
You can make these muffins with our homemade muffin mix, or make them from scratch.
We sprinkle some chocolate chips on the top of the muffins before we bake them as an extra chocolatey treat. It’s much quicker than icing/frosting them!
- Using Muffin Mix
- ¼ cup coconut oil
- 2 eggs
- 2½ cups of homemade muffin mix
- 1/2 tsp vanilla
- 3/4 cup cocoa (unsweetened)
- 1 cup of milk
- 1 cup of packed grated zucchini
- choc chips to sprinkle on the top.
- Making from Scratch
- 3/4 cup brown sugar
- 1/4 cup oil or softened butter
- 2 eggs
- 1/2 tsp vanilla
- 3/4 cup cocoa (unsweetened)
- 2 cups of wholemeal (or plain) flour
- 3 tsp baking powder
- 1 cup of milk
- 1 cup of packed grated zucchini
- choc chips to sprinkle on the top.
- Preheat your oven to 180 Celsius and line a muffin tin with paper cases.
- In a large bowl combine the eggs, oil and vanilla and beat well.
- Add the muffin mix and cocoa and combine, adding the milk a little at a time.
- Stir in the grated zucchini.
- In a large bowl whisk together the sugar and oil.
- Add the eggs and vanilla and beat well.
- Gentle stir in the cocoa.
- In another bowl combine the flour and baking soda and add it to the mixture a little at a time, alternating with the milk until everyone is well combined.
- Stir in the grated zucchini.
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- Fill the muffin cases till they are 3/4 full, then sprinkle a handful of chocolate chips onto the top of each muffin.
- Bake in a moderate oven for 20 minutes or until the muffins are firm and a skewer comes out clean.
These muffins keep well in an airtight container (in the fridge if it’s hot) for a few days… but you really should eat them all while they are still warm and gooey!
Do you grow zucs? Have you have a bumper crop this year?
What’d your favourite zucchini recipe?
My kids also have a blog pose or two – usually picking produce or holding animals. Will definitely try the muffins… we have zucchinis out our ears too!
This is the best year we’ve had with our garden and I’ve gotten a grand total of… 6 zucchinis. (we have really poor soil that needs so major building up! Plus the insane drought this year…). Quinoa and zucchini fritters with bacon and ranch dressing were a winner! Not so much with the toddler who refuses to eat, well, almost everything these days, but we adults enjoyed them! Might have to make these muffins now though… I mean, you can eat lots of chocolate if it’s full of veggies, right?
Getting LOTS of male flowers on the pumpkin vines too, and found out you can eat those. They’re pretty tasty fried or chopped up in a stir fry (just watch out for ants).
So these are my reward for cooking zucchini 107 ways so far ?