Healthy Chocolate and Vegetable Mini Muffins

Submitted by Gingernut

"I developed this for a friend with a picky 3 year old. I had made some very healthy bran muffins that my girls enjoyed, but her son wouldn't touch. So I added some chocolate, and a bit more sugar, but left all the healthy stuff in there, too. The nutritional information on these is very encouraging! Updated to say these are much better if you use 70% cocoa dark chocolate."

 

• Ready In: 30mins
• Ingredients: 13
• Yields: 36 mini muffins
• Serves: 12

ingredients

• 2⁄3 cup whole wheat flour
• 1 cup oat bran
• 1 cup rolled oats
• 1⁄3 cup cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1⁄4 - 1⁄2 cup sugar (depending on how mean a mummy you are)
• 1 egg
• 1 cup yoghurt (I use lightly sweetened vanilla yoghurt)
• 2 tablespoons canola oil
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3⁄4 cup cooked and mashed butternut squash or 3/4 cup sweet potato
• 1 medium zucchini, finely grated (about 1 1/2 cups)
• 100 g bittersweet dark chocolate, chopped (about 4 oz) or 100 g chocolate chips (about 4 oz)

directions

1. Spray mini muffin pan with cooking spray.
2. Combine dry ingredients in large bowl and mix well.
3. In separate bowl, beat egg slightly, and add all remaining ingredients except choc chips and veggies. Stir well.
4. Add liquid mixture, mix until ingredients are moistened. Gently fold in veggies and choc chips.
5. Divide among mini muffin cups, filling completely. Smooth top slightly.
6. Bake at 175 c for 15 min, or until center comes clean on toothpick/knife.
7. Cool on rack.

Reviews

[Cleatuslives]

This was a great recipe! I am gluten-intolerant, so I used rice flour, rice bran, and gluten free oats. I left out the chocolate chips, and put in a tablespoon of molasses. They turned out amazing! They really give you the chocolate fix but are still quite healthy.

 

[LillyZackMom]

I was VERY surprised at how good these taste! If you're looking for a Starbucks chocolate muffin, this definitely isn't it. But it does have a nice texture with a good chocolate taste. I think that this will make a very good breakfast muffin for me & my kids to grab as we run out the door. I did make the following changes: used wheat germ instead of oat bran, used 1/2c sugar, used 6 oz nonfat Greek vanilla yogurt, used the sweet potato, added 1/4c milk, and subbed 1T applesauce for 1T of the oil. Thanks for sharing!