These healthy, delicious chocolate muffins with zucchini are easy to bake and a perfect indulgent snack or zero waste lunchbox treat. It has all the elements required to be a satisfying comfort food, yet you'll be eating your veggies too!
Many wholefoods shops have unpackaged ingredients such as choc chips, and items like oil can be purchased using your own bottles. Honey is possibly the easiest ingredient to get as its widely available in health Food stores and markets. Honey is a great alternative to sugar and it's far less processed.
Even if you can't source any of these ingredients zero waste, the fact you're making muffins rather than purchasing means not only is it healthier, less processed and less resource usage, but you are avoiding extra packaging and plastics.
This recipe should be mixed with a wooden spoon (or something similar), no appliances necessary except an oven of course.
Items you will need:
Measuring jug
Mixing bowl
Grater
Wooden spoon or spatula
Muffin or small cake trays
Teaspoon
Pastry brush (optional)
Ingredients
1 1/4 cups of Wholemeal Self Raising Flour
1/3 cup of Raw, Unsweetened Cacao Powder
1/3 cup of Honey
1/2 cup of Dark Chocolate Chips
1 Medium Zucchini
2 Eggs
1 tsp. of Baking Soda
1 tsp. Vanilla
2 tbsp. Oil (Olive or Coconut)
1/2 cup of Milk (Soy or Almond milk both work well)
Butter or Oil to grease tray
How to Make Them
1. Preheat your oven to 180 degrees
2. Grate zucchini and use a linen tea towel to squish out some of the excess water
3. Add flour, cocoa powder and baking powder in a mixing bowl and stir
4. Add to the flour mix, beaten eggs, oil, honey, vanilla and zucchini. Mix well
5. Lastly fold in the dark chocolate chips. You can swap these for dairy free choc chips or even carob.
6. Grease cupcake tray with olive oil or coconut oil.
You don't need cupcake liners or baking paper. These will pop right out, I promise. To apply, drizzle oil over the muffin holes and use finger tip or a pastry brush to spread around.
7. Spoon into cupcake trays
8. Bake it!
Cooking time depends on your muffin size:
Bake 8-10 minutes for Small Muffins - yields 20-24
Bake 20-25 mins for Large Muffins - yields 12
Bake for 40-45 minutes if making it into a cake
Stick a skewer into the middle of a muffin and if it comes out clean, it's cooked. If not, cook for a minute or 2 longer.
I baked mine in what we call Fairy Cake Tins (I have no idea what they are really called). As a child, we used to get fairy cakes which are little muffin type things with jam inside and sugar on top.
These are the size of a small muffin and are rounded on the bottom, so when they are cooked they are a bit of a UFO shape.
These are sweet and wont give you a sugar high, so you can enjoy an afternoon snack without having a sugar crash shortly after. If you do want to make them sweeter you can top with icing or Nutella, or serve them warm with a dollop of ice-cream.
If your kids spot the zucchini and are put off, you can peel them first and you wont see any trace of it once baked.
To reheat, place in the microwave for 10-20seconds
These can be frozen for 2 months or more in an airtight container, there is no need to wrap for freezing - check out my tips here for freezing cake without plastic. Just make sure to let them cool completely first, pop them into a container and leave a little space between each so they don't all freeze into a big chunk. These are a great dessert, school lunchbox snack or just a yummy treat.
I have so many recipes in my special secret notebook that I've experimented and adapted over the years to fit with our allergies, tastes and lifestyle. This is one I had forgotten about and it's been 18 months since we last made them. Flicking through my recipe book for some lunchbox inspiration, I couldn't believe we hadn't been eating these! Time to revisit a few more I reckon.
Tips on Making this Zero Waste
--Try to by raw honey from your local health food shop. It is usually locally produced and you can refill your containers.
--Head to your bulk store for chocolate chips.
--Check the bottom row at the supermarket for flour and cocoa powder packaged in cardboard.
--Use butter or oil to coat the muffin tray and skip the baking paper. Read more about zero waste baking here.
--Zucchini can almost always be bought package free, but if you can't find it, just ask at your store if they have any out the bag not wrapped.
--Still using clingwrap? then head here for numerous ways to replace it and skip the single use plastic
Let me know if you try them! (And if you make them for your kids, will you tell them they have zucchini in them?)