WHEN LIFE GIVES YOU 12 CUPS OF SHREDDED ZUCCHINI, FRESH FROM THE GARDEN, YOU… If you’re a crazy person like me, you hit the kitchen and make zucchini muffins. Lots of muffins. Now these are not our first healthy zucchini muffins. (So far we’ve done zucchini spice muffins and a zucchini chocolate cake.) But they’re some of our tastiest!.
You might notice that these are flat, like pancakes, and no it’s not your sleep-deprived eyes playing tricks on you. That’s just our “muffin top” pan at work (ahem). We have tons of muffin pans, from zoo animals to mini muffins, to flowers, gift-wrapped presents and more. I love making healthy homemade muffins to have on hand and I find that varying the size and shape just adds a little more zip, especially when you’re tucking them into a homemade lunch to go or rounding out a snack at home.
Originally this was another Martha Stewart creation but we made some updates, the best of which were simply the cooking temperature and the pan. Instead of making a loaf, which can be hard to bake evenly with a wet batter like this one, the muffin tops worked perfectly, as would any small muffin pan. I used whole-wheat flour and also mini chocolate chips because you can get away with using less of them, and still manage to still get a couple in every sweet little bite.
Now, with the leaves in our zucchini patch fading from green to brown, the end appears nigh. This could be the end of our zucchini era but that just means more tasty things ahead…like pumpkin. Stay tuned. You know I love a good pumpkin muffin.
Printapplesauce zucchini muffins
Adapted from Martha Stewart’s Zucchini-Applesauce Chocolate-Chip Loaf.
Ingredients
- Nonstick cooking spray or butter for pan
- 3 large eggs, room temperature
- 1/2 cup oil
- 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 3 cups grated zucchini (from 1 large zucchini)
- 2 cups whole-wheat flour
- 2 3/4 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon coarse salt
- 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 1/2 cup mini chocolate chips
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Prepare pans with cooking spray or greasing with butter.
- In a large bowl beat the eggs, then blend in oil, applesauce, sugar and vanilla. Fold in zucchini. Using a metal sifter over the bowl, add flour, baking powder and salt. Stir until the mixture is not quite together then add chocolate chips.
- Fill muffin tins 3/4 full and bake for approximately 10 minutes, depending on the size and shape of your pan.
These look good, Charity. Zucs bursting from our home garden, too. But, baby, bring on the pumpkin muffins! And hit the spell check darlin’ — “nigh”
Well, rats. Sadly spell check doesn’t help here. Neigh is a perfectly good word, especially for my readers who are horses. 😉 Let us know if you make these and how they turn out!
Just swap the refined sugar for honey and make it better…. check out the website for 100 days of real food to get some great recipes.
Hi, Tammy! We LOVE 100 Days of Real Food (and just did a giveaway to celebrate the new cookbook). Sugar in baking is a bit tricky. I always reduce the sugar in any given recipe but subbing honey for sugar altogether doesn’t always produce great results because of it’s liquid form. If you try honey with this recipe will you let us know how it goes?
We do have a nice blueberry muffin recipe that uses only honey as sweetener, and a great chocolate cake with nothing but maple syrup to sweeten it too. Both worth a try!
Charity,
What would happen if I didn’t let the eggs come to room temperature? Would that mess up the recipe in some way? Trying to avoid the extra time it takes to wait if I want to make them on a whim. Thoughts?
Thanks,
Rachel
Nothing terrible. They just work better at room temp. If you are short on time, just skip that step!
I didn’t wait for the eggs to come to room temperature (I just overlooked that part) and I used coconut oil (which hardened up some – whoops! Forgot about that, too.) . I also used a raw sugar/Stevia blend. They turned out just fine and tasty. Hooray! I think my 3-year old ate 3 of them almost right away and then asked for one for dinner. That’s a winner in my book.
so, we’re a little crazy, but we made these muffins 3 times this week! ha! Such a good recipe. Thanks for sharing!
Yahoo, Allison! I do love those too. Now I’m inspired…
What can you substitute the eggs for?
Thanks!
Jenn — It’s taken me a while but I’ve found what might be a good substitute for eggs here. You’ll need flaxseed meal (ground flaxseed).
1 flax egg (1 tablespoon flaxseed meal + 3 tablespoons water)
If you try it, let us know how it goes!
These are amazing. Made them this morning before my 3 yo went to school and packed one for him. Love how quick they are. Only thing I did differently was I hid one mini chocolate chip in the middle of each muffin because chocolate isn’t allowed in my sons school lunch. I won’t tell if you won’t.