Zucchini Muffins

“Your body is not your masterpiece, your life is.”

— Glennon Doyle

Happy Spring, my friends!!

So, I have a very similar recipe here, which is my chocolate zucchini cake covered in a match glaze (YUM!), but I wanted to make this slightly more kid-friendly! As Oliver is almost 13 months (what the heck!!??), I will happily admit that he has already consumed a little bit of chocolate—no shame here! That being said, we are trying to make sure we never sugar-overload with him, and the only sugar he generally has is from natural sources, like fruit. Of course, most of my baked goods have at least a touch of sugar, and these zucchini muffins are no different! In the 9 large muffins that I made, there is only ¾ cup of sugar, which is 12 tablespoons total, or 1 TBL + 1 tsp per muffin (I think!!). All in all, Oliver’s sugar intake per muffin is small, seeing as he doesn’t even eat ½ a muffin at a time!

Woo, that was a lot of quick math there. Anyways! If you check out the chocolate zucchini cake recipe that I did YEARS ago, you’ll see why I’m obsessed with adding zucchini to a recipe like this—aside from the childhood memory of it, it adds an extra amount of moisture, some vegetable intake, all things I’m here for, especially with a little one! Oliver has been devouring these in the morning with his breakfast, and it makes my heart SO happy! Of course, this kid is going to (hopefully) love baked goods, but if we can also teach him the importance of fruits and vegetables along the way, my job will be done!

I had Oliver help me in making these, and aside from sneaking a taste of the butter, which he wasn’t a fan of, he did tremendously! He helped mix and fold, which I was so pleased with. Then, it was time to put some chocolate chips on top of a few of them, so I showed him how to do it, thinking he would follow my lead, but he ended up just taking a handful of the chocolate chips and putting them directly into his mouth. Of course, why was I surprised?! Regardless, it was a wonderful first little baking adventure together, even if he had maybe 10 mini chips, who cares! These are perfect for kids, for adults, for breakfast, for a snack, we can’t get enough in our house and hope that you experiment with adding some veggies to your morning muffins, too!

ingredients

Butter—6 oz, or 1 ½ sticks

Brown Sugar—5.25 oz, or ¾ C

Eggs—3

Vanilla Extract—2 tsp

Flour—13.75 oz, or 2 ¾ C

Baking Powder—2 ½ tsp

Baking Soda—1 ½ tsp

Salt—1 tsp

Cinnamon—2 tsp

(Oat) Milk—4 oz, or ½ C

Zucchini, shredded—16.5 oz, or 2 C

Chocolate Chips (Optional)—to sprinkle on top

process

Preheat your oven to 350˚F

In the bowl of your mixer, cream together the butter and sugar until smooth

Add in the eggs, one at a time, and mix until combined; add in vanilla extract

In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon

With the mixer on low, slowly pour in about ½ of the dry mixture, then ½ of the milk; scrape down the bowl

Add the remainder of the dry mixture and milk; mix until just combined

Fold in the shredded zucchini

Spray your muffin pan with nonstick spray (we used large muffin pans, so this recipe made 9 muffins)

Fill each cup up about ¾ of the way full

Optional—sprinkle chocolate chips on the tops of the muffins

Bake in the oven for 18 minutes, rotate, 15 minutes

This time was for large muffins, so if you are doing smaller muffins, start with 10 minutes, rotate, 10 minutes

When the muffins spring back slightly when touched, remove from the oven and allow to cool before taking them out of the pan

Bon Appétit!

Vegan Banana Nut Muffins

“I’ve always found people love you best if you can laugh at your own foolish misfortunes and keep mum about everyone else’s.”

— Barbara Kingsolver, Prodigal Summer

Does anyone else still have mixed feelings when it comes to overripe bananas? A slight feeling like damn, I can’t believe I didn’t eat these fast enough combined with nice! Now I can freeze these babies for smoothies or chuck them in some baked good!! because that’s exactly how I feel every time.

Now that our little almost one-year-old (what the heck!!) is eating like a full-grown adult, he can down a full banana to himself! We have gone through being able to buy a bunch or two of bananas for the week to it now only lasting a few days, honestly, we just need our own tree in the yard! Last week, I went overboard and bought 4+ bunches because I reallllyyy didn’t want to go to the grocery store more than I truly needed to, but then the joke was truly on me. Surprisingly, that many bananas doesn’t last long in this house either because we can’t eat them fast enough! Moral of the story, suck it up, go get a new bunch every few days, and deal with the fact that you no longer have a tiny babe anymore! Ugh. The tears!

And so, here we have this recipe. I froze maybe 4-5 bananas for smoothies, and then I took a couple of very ripe ones and made them into these vegan muffins! Bananas are an incredible replacement for eggs, by the way! They are also very lightly sweetened, just some maple + the bananas, oh and some chocolate chips (duh!). You can add in whatever mix-ins you want—we learned that Oliver is not a walnut fan at the moment—and voilà! What’s the best part?! Because these are egg-free, you can feed the batter to your little one! I gave O the tiniest taste and it was so exciting!! He still isn’t eating chocolate, so we had to pick out the chips from the baked muffins (I didn’t think of this beforehand!), and they were a huge hit!!

With a husband who doesn’t love overly sweet things, a one-year-old who doesn’t consume much sugar at all, and me, who is trying to slightly cut back on my sugar obsession, these are PERFECT. Seriously, they check every single, delicious box! Now is the time to say bye to the banana bread you once knew and loved and up-level with these vegan muffins instead!

ingredients

Flour—10 oz, or 2 C

Oats—7 oz, or 2 C

Baking Powder—2 tsp

Baking Soda—1 tsp

Cinnamon—3 tsp

Nutmeg—1 tsp

Salt—1 ½ tsp

Walnuts, chopped—4 oz, or 1 C

Maple Syrup—5 oz, or ½ C

Oat Milk—6 oz, or ¾ C

Bananas, mashed—2 medium

Vanilla Extract—2 tsp

Coconut Oil or Butter, melted—4 oz, or ½ C, or 8 TBL

Chocolate Chips, mini—7 oz, or 1 C

process

Preheat your oven to 350˚F.

In a large bowl, combine your dry ingredients: flour, oats, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt and walnuts; mix.

In another bowl, combine your wet ingredients: maple syrup, oat milk, bananas, vanilla extract and your oil of choice.

Add in your wet to the dry and mix until just combined.

Fold in your chocolate chips.

Fill your muffin cups about ¾ of the way full; bake for 15 minutes, rotate, bake another 10-12 minutes. Because these are vegan, and have no eggs, if you want the center softer, then reduce the time!

Remove from the oven and allow to cool for about 20 minutes before removing from the pan and eating!

Bon Appétit!

Caffeinated Bran Muffins

“Worrying does not empty tomorrow of its troubles, it empties today of its strength.”

— Corrie Ten Boom

A couple of weeks ago, my husband randomly said You know what I haven’t had in a while? A bran muffin. I then laughed and called him an old man for that, as I do every time he eats Cracklin’ Oat Bran (which I secretly love!). It then got me thinking that he is absolutely right! You just don’t see those as the top muffins at a bakery or coffee shop, or even Costco, so I decided, of course, to get myself some wheat bran and make some of the best bran muffins around!

I am also recently the owner of TWO XL muffin pans, which makes me oh so happy, especially for a muffin like this! I knew that I wanted these babies to be huge as well as moist. Wow, what a sentence. I also knew that they needed a crumb topping, no negotiations there. Slightly sweet, highly spiced, and, here’s the kicker, I threw in some coffee grounds, too! An afternoon pick me up anyone? A perfect addition to your morning coffee or tea? Hell yes.

Ever since coming up with my insane cornbread recipe a few years ago where I use olive oil as the fat, I knew these muffins needed it too, for some extra flavor, moistness, and a little savory aspect to them, and I LOVE it. These muffins are probably the best I’ve come up with yet! The bran isn’t going to clog up your throat, the flavor is anything but dull, and there are so many raisins in these that you can basically tick off a serving of fruit after eating one!

I’m here to help in wheat bran muffins’ comeback, so get yourself ready for this (hopefully) upcoming fall weather with a batch of these muffins, what can I say except you’re welcome?

crumble ingredients

Brown Sugar—4 oz, or ½ C

Coconut Sugar—1.5 oz, or ¼ C

Cinnamon—1 TBL

Salt—1 tsp

Coconut Oil, melted—4 oz, or ½ C + 1 TBL

Flour—7.5 oz, 1 ¼ C

process

In a large bowl, combine the sugars, cinnamon and salt.

Pour in the melted coconut oil and mix to combine.

Add in the flour, mixing until just incorporated. I like to use my hands for this step, as it helps to get larger chunks!

Set aside until ready to use.

muffin ingredients

Brown Sugar—7 oz, or 1 C

Flour—7.5 oz, or 1 ¼ C

Wheat Bran—1.5 oz, or ¾ C

Salt—1 ½ tsp

Baking Powder—2 ½ tsp

Cinnamon—1 TBL

Nutmeg—1 tsp

Coffee, ground—1 TBL

Eggs—2

Milk—8 oz, or 1 C

Olive Oil—4.5 oz, or ½ C

Vanilla Extract—1 tsp

Raisins—5 oz, or 1 C

process

Preheat your oven to 350˚F.

In a large bowl, mix together the sugar, flour, bran, salt, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg and ground coffee.

In a separate bowl, combine the eggs, milk, olive oil and vanilla.

Pour into your dry ingredients and mix until it is just combined. Do not overmix, as this will give larger holes in the crumb!

Fold in the raisins.

Either spray muffin pans with nonstick spray or use paper liners and fill each cup ¾ of the way up. I use LARGE muffin tins, so I only got 9 muffins out of this recipe, but if you use the most standard size, you can get about 18.

Sprinkle the crumb topping evenly over each of the muffins.

Put in the oven and bake for 20 minutes, then rotate the pans, and bake for another 20 minutes. Again, I used larger muffin pans, but with the standard size, start with 12-rotate-12 minutes!

After the allotted baking time, test with a toothpick to see if they are finished baking.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool before removing from the pans.

Bon Appétit!

Chocolate Lemon Poppyseed Muffins

It’s Mother’s Day, it’s Mother’s Day!

I mean how can one not be this excited?! I am in love with my mom and my birthday always falls right around this weekend (sometimes on the big day!), and so there are always celebrations galore. Go figure that I would do another muffin recipe—last year I literally posted Mother’s Day Muffins…

This year we are going crazy with freshness, lightness, and chocolateyness. I don’t know about you, but it seems like moms are just obsessed with that in desserts. Something about the simplicity, the vibrancy, the freshness in lemon that seems to scream Moms are going to love me!

Then I added in chocolate, because, well, chocolate, my friends…and topped them with a crumb. Let me tell you, a lemon poppyseed muffin with a crumb topping is a game changer! The addition of a couple of unexpected things in these little muffins is what really makes it unique for me—who am I kidding, was chocolate really a huge surprise?! But definitely a good one!

So, my friends, if you’re looking to wow mom, who you all should if you’re close enough to be with yours (sadly, West Virginia to Maine isn’t driving distance…), these will do the trick! I mean how many times has she woken up to breakfast in the oven, the coffee brewing, maybe some beautiful tulips on the table and Michael Bublé playing in the background?! For the almost 26 years of my life, my mom always does all of those things for me, she’s basically Superwoman, and I have no clue how she gets it all done.

This Sunday I encourage you to swap places with her for just the one day—let her eat in the living room and you make her bed!—all starting with a little coffee, a couple of these Chocolate Lemon Poppyseed Muffins, and a crazy amount of love!

crumb ingredients

Brown Sugar—2 oz, or ¼ C

Flour—3 oz, or ½ C

Butter—2 oz, or ¼ C/4 TBL

process

Combine brown sugar and flour together in a bowl.

Cut the butter up into hazelnut-sized cubes.

Add the butter in with the dry ingredients and mix.

Using either a pastry cutter or your hands, rub the butter into the sugar-flour until it resembles little bits of sand.

Set aside until ready to use.

muffin ingredients

Butter, room temperature—4 oz, ½ C/8 TBL

Sugar—6 oz, or ¾ C

Eggs—2

Greek Yogurt—4oz, or ½ C

Vanilla Extract—1 tsp

Flour—12 oz, or 2 C

Baking Soda—1 tsp

Baking Powder—1 ¼ tsp

Salt—½ tsp

Poppyseeds—0.25 oz, or 1 TBL

Lemon Zest—1 medium lemon

Lemon Juice—4 oz, or ½ C

Dark Chocolate Chips—6 oz, or 1 C

process

Preheat your oven to 375˚ F.

In the bowl of your mixer, cream together the butter and sugar.

Scrape down the sides of your bowl and add in the eggs, one at a time.

Add in the vanilla and Greek yogurt—mix until all combined.

Sift together your flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt.

Add the lemon zest and poppyseeds.

Slowly add this to your mixer, making sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl when needed.

Once you have added all of the dry ingredients, slowly stream in the lemon juice.

Add the chocolate chips.

Line a muffin pan, and fill each cup ¾ of the way with muffin batter.

Sprinkle a healthy sized portion of the crumb you made on top, making sure to cover the top completely.

When you have filled all of your cups, put in your preheated oven and bake for 18-20 minutes, until slightly golden on top.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool slightly before eating.

Bon appétit!