These muffins just sort of happened. I was at the cottage and wanted to make some chocolate/zucchini loaves. It’s zucchini season after all. Unfortunately I discovered I did not have a loaf pan at the cottage (note to self) and more importantly I did not have any cocoa powder. (What??) Unwilling to give up on my plan, I changed directions and created these ↓
I have now made them three times in the past five days. They keep disappearing!
Prepare one pan of 12 muffin cups by greasing them thoroughly with either butter or cooking spray. you may want to prepare a small loaf pan or ramekin in case you have just a bit of batter left over.
1 cup dates
water to cover the dates
1 1/2 cups grated zucchini
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
1/4 cup butter cut into small pieces
1/4 cup cooking oil (grapeseed)
2 eggs
1/2 cup raw steel cut oats
1/2 cup ground flax seeds
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
1 cup chocolate chips (because everything is better with chocolate. But they are not essential)
OPTIONAL: 1 finely diced apple (since it is also apple season)
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
METHOD:
place dates in saucepan and cover with water. Bring pan to a boil, stir and turn the heat off. Add butter so that it will melt, along with oil. These two ingredients will help to cool the dates, which is a good thing.
Stir to mash dates and allow this mixture to sit for 10 minutes
In the bowl of your mixer, add zucchini, vanilla, sugar and eggs and give them a whirl
add oats, flax seed, salt, baking soda and give it a quick whirl
Add date mixture and give it all a whirl
if you are adding apple, and nuts do it now
Add flour and chocolate chips (unless you are not going to add chocolate chips!!!)
Give it all a very quick whirl (about 10 seconds)
Spoon mixture into each muffin to 3/4 full and bake in 350 oven for approximately 20 minutes. The muffins should be golden and firm (not hard, but they should have a bit of a spring when you tap the top) when they are finished cooking.
Allow to sit for five minutes before removing them from the tin.
Enjoy them right away or the next day…if they last that long
♥