Flourless Chocolate Zucchini Muffins

Over the years cooking in my home has been a challenge with 5 kids, their friends, other family members and friends dropping by, meeting the dietary needs and tastes of them all is always interesting.  In recent years though I have found myself dealing with not only food allergies but one child who needs a gluten free diet, one who has become vegan and another who is health and body conscious.  My dear friend Tiffany often sends me recipes because she is gluten free and knows I am always looking for interesting things to cook for Jake.  She recently sent me this yummy muffin recipe Flourless Chocolate Zucchini Muffins.  I, myself, am allergic to bananas and I generally substitute applesauce for the bananas in recipes so I decided since I was making changes anyway, I would alter the recipe to suit the many and varied needs of my family.  What follows here are 5 versions of the original recipe and the results of my taste testers on how they turned out!

Flourless Chocolate Zucchini Muffins

Yields: 9 muffins

Ingredients

• ½ cup almond butter
• 1 ripe medium/large banana
• 1 large egg
• ¼ cup agave syrup
• ¼ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 Tbsp. ground chia seeds
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• ½ tsp. baking soda
• 1 cup zucchini, shredded and squeezed of excess liquid
• ¼ cup chocolate chips, plus more for sprinkling on top

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375F and prepare a muffin pan by spraying 9 cavities with cooking spray. Set aside.
2. Add all ingredients except for zucchini and chocolate chips to a blender and blend on high until batter is smooth and creamy. Stir in shredded zucchini and chocolate chips by hand.
3. Pour batter into prepared muffin pan, filling each cavity until it is about ¾ full. Sprinkle with additional chocolate chips, if desired.
4. Bake for 20 minutes, until the tops of your muffins are set and a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean. Allow muffins to cool in pan for ~10 minutes before removing. Store in an air­tight container for up to a week.

I found that mixing the banana and egg or banana substitute and egg substitute together before adding the dry ingredients worked best for me.

Just dump it all into your blender container and mix on slow until you get it thoroughly mixed, then up the speed to hi to smooth it all out.

If you are using chocolate chips, sprinkle those ontop before popping into the oven.  I used my silocone baking cups but normal paper ones or a silicone muffin pan would work just as well.  I don’t generally bake my muffins directly in a muffin tin as they tend to be difficult to remove without breaking no matter how well you grease and flour the tin.

These flourless muffins rise beautifully and taste fabulous.

Version 2

Ingredients

• ½ cup almond butter
• ½ C applesauce (I used unsweetened)
• 1 large egg
• ¼ cup agave syrup
• ¼ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 Tbsp. ground chia seeds
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• ½ tsp. baking soda
• 1 cup zucchini, shredded and squeezed of excess liquid
• ¼ cup chocolate chips, plus more for sprinkling on top

NOTE:  For Versions 3-5 the cooking time needed to be increased by about 10-15 minutes each.  I tested for doneness by using the toothpick method and added 5 minutes cook time, tested again and continued this until the toothpick came out clean.  I found that the vegan versions (versions 4 and 5) tended to be much moister than the versions with an egg, the texture was more brownie than muffin but the flavour was still quite good.  I also ran out of almond butter and substituted an almond/cashew butter I had in the cupboard, it tasted basically the same so use whatever nut butter you have on hand!  I think I may try to do a version with the bananas using peanut butter since we don’t have any nut allergies in the family, I think the combination of peanut butter, chocolate and banana will be a hit with my crew.  I also omitted the chocolate chips on top after I tasted the first batch, it was too much chocolate for me and the taste testers liked the others just as much as the ones with the chips on top.

Version 3

Ingredients

• ½ cup almond butter
• ½ medium avocado
• 1 large egg
• ¼ cup agave syrup
• ¼ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 Tbsp. ground chia seeds
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• ½ tsp. baking soda
• 1 cup zucchini, shredded and squeezed of excess liquid
• ¼ cup chocolate chips, plus more for sprinkling on top

Version 4

Ingredients

• ½ cup almond butter
• ½ C applesauce
• 1 ripe medium/large banana
• ¼ cup agave syrup
• ¼ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 Tbsp. ground chia seeds
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• ½ tsp. baking soda
• 1 cup zucchini, shredded and squeezed of excess liquid
• ¼ cup chocolate chips, plus more for sprinkling on top

Version 5

Ingredients

• ½ cup almond butter
• ½ medium avocado
• 1 ripe medium/large banana
• ¼ cup agave syrup
• ¼ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 Tbsp. ground chia seeds
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• ½ tsp. baking soda
• 1 cup zucchini, shredded and squeezed of excess liquid
• ¼ cup chocolate chips, plus more for sprinkling on top

I recruited 8 taste testers to try each version and they loved them all.

Version 1 had a distinct banana flavour and really was delicious.  The texture was excellent.

Version 2 was moist, chocolatey and incredibly tasty.  The texture was perfect and overall a great variation.

Version 3 moist, chocolatey and not too sweet, the perfect combination.  The taster mentioned that she was very picky about sweets and wanted the recipe for this muffin because it was everything she looked for.  This version got a great response from all of the taste testers and was by far the favourite due to the moist texture and creamy, chocolate flavour.

The 2 vegan versions were both a huge hit but I think the avocado version was the winner of the 2.  The creamier version over the one with a slight tart edge from the applesauce came out ahead overall.

I would love to hear any results you might have from trying these amazing muffins out yourself.  I don’t think you can go wrong with any version you attempt, these muffins are simply delicious!