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Low carb and moist
Chocolate Zucchini Muffins are not new to the world, but I’ve made them low carb here with this new recipe.
The Bite Shot
One of the reasons it has taken me so long to get this recipe for Chocolate Zucchini Muffins up on my site was the pictures. Do you even know how hard it is to shoot CHOCOLATE?
Brown is such a hard color to get right in photography. If you don’t get it right you get either black something closer to a color you’d find in a baby’s diaper.
I think I got as close as I’m going to get to the right brown color on these Chocolate Zucchini Muffins.
Zucchini for moisture
It is zucchini season and I have always known that using zucchini in baked goods adds moisture, bulk and sometimes texture. Heck, I’ve even used zucchini as a replacement for apples in my Keto Apple Crisp.
Plus you also add a vegetables to an afternoon treat in this Chocolate Zucchini Muffins recipe…they won’t even know.
Low Carb/Keto Sweeteners
Why do we use drops or alcohols or a combo of both in low carb/keto baking and cooking?
Stevia and Monkfruit are extracts, kinda like vanilla extract. Just a little bit packs a big punch of sweetness. But in baking (or cooking, too) we usually need the bulk of sugar alcohols like erythritol or xylitol or allulose. These sugar alcohols have the bulk like real sugar, but sometimes they do not have enough sweetness. So a combo of an extract and an alcohol brings a recipe to an equivalent sweetness and consistency of traditional recipes.
For example if I am making an old fashion/conventional batch of cookies the recipe calls for 1 cup of sugar. In low carb/keto baking that same recipe is not always a 1:1 alteration. Meaning I can not just substitute 1 cup of a sugar alcohol for the traditional sugar in that batch of cookies. I need the bulk of the 1 cup of sweetener plus a little bit of the extracts to bring up the sweetness.
The science in the bowl
The other part in cooking or baking low carb/keto with sugar alcohols and sweeteners is that they do not alway bake OR store the same way as traditional cookies. There’s some science going on in the bowl and the baking with the flours, sugars and fats.
Back to our cookies example…when you are using almond or coconut flour in place of the traditional flour and you are replacing the traditional sugar with sugar alcohols the amounts used and the baking time is a little different.
Traditional wheat flour has protein in it and coconut flour is VERY absorbent. Plus…when those cookies cool sometimes they are rock hard or have a cooling effect in your mouth.
Soft & Moist Chocolate Zucchini Muffins
Back to your original question…stevia drops are readily available at most supermarkets. A few drops to your coffee or to a chaffle or a salad dressing can help replace the sweetness without the bulk of traditional sugar. True monkfruit extract is harder to come by and more expensive, but it does the same thing.
One last thing…and this could just be my experience…when I combine monkfruit with a erythritol it lessens the mouth cooling effect for me….for me this combo tastes and bakes the most like traditional sugar.
The brand of sweetener I use in my Chocolate Zucchini Muffins is called Lakanto Monkfruit sweetener (CLASSIC). I use this brand because they already have combined the two ingredients. Then as I’m making a recipe I may add a few drops of stevia to up the sweetness to mimic a “traditional sugar” recipe.
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Ingredients
- 1 cup zucchini grated and drained
- ½ cup butter
- 4 oz chocolate, unsweetened
- 1 cup almond flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- ¼ tsp salt
- ⅓ cup Lakanto Monkfruit Sweetener powdered
- 3 eggs
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- ½ cup Lily’s chocolate chips + 2 tbsp
- 5 drops liquid stevia
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350* and line muffin tin with 12 paper cups.
- In small microwave safe bowl melt together the unsweetened bakers chocolate and butter. Stir in between 30 second increments until fully melted and then set aside.
- Grate one medium sized zucchini onto a thin linen-type kitchen cloth. Wrap up the grated zucchini into the cloth and squeeze all the liquid out of the zucchini then set side. Should yeild about 1 cup of drained zucchini.
- In a large mixing bowl sift together almond flour, baking powder, powdered sweetener and salt. Mix in the eggs, vanilla, stevia and zucchini until fully incorporated. Mix in the melted chocolate and stir to fully combine all the ingredients.
- Fold in the ½ cup of chocolate chips until combined.
- Equally divide the batter into 12 muffin cups and then sprinkle a few chips on top of each of the 12 muffins.
- Bake at 350* for 25-30 minutes. Remove from oven to cool on counter. Serve warm or store in the fridge for later.
Nutrition
MEDICAL AND NUTRITION DISCLAIMER…Please note that I am not a medical or nutritional professional. I am simply recounting and sharing my own experiences on this blog. Nutritional break downs are done using a commercial nutrition calculator. Nothing I express here should be taken as medical advice and you should consult with your doctorbefore starting any diet or exercise program. I provide nutritional information for my recipes simply as a courtesy to my readers, this should never be construed as medical advice.
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