Double Chocolate and Zucchini Muffins

For those of us you who are familiar with the cooking of the 90's and early 2000's you've probably made your peace with the idea of eating vegetables and legumes for dessert. There was the carrot cake resurgence, the attack of the black bean brownie and the West's new fascination with traditional Asian red bean sweets (look at us, we're multicultural, we do yoga and eat beans for dessert!) so at this point, I'm pretty sure that no one really bats an eyelash at the idea of eating a zucchini muffin...certainly one that is saturated with chocolate. As pertains to healthiness, I'm not about to tell you that this recipe is some kind of athletic rocket fuel or weight loss miracle, what it is though is a wholewheat muffin which you have the option of sweetening naturally and which relies on apple sauce and eggs to guarantee a low fat content all the while remaining incredibly moist. Seriously, you'll have no trouble passing this off as a normal muffin or cupcake, certainly if you slap a dollop of nutella on it as icing (oops, so much for healthy!) This ain't your standard lump of industrial palm oil and glucose syrup that's certain...oh and aside from tasting as good as any less forgiving muffin, it's a fast recipe too!

Dry Ingredients
2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour or white whole wheat flour
2/3 cups unsweetened cocoa powder
1.5 teaspoons baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup chocolate*



Wet Ingredients
4 tablespoons olive oil
1 cup honey or sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
4 eggs
2 cup shredded zucchini (about one large zucchini)
1/2 cup applesauce
1cup milk

* In my case, I like a mix of 72%chunks and bittersweet chocolate chips, really it's up to you! Though if you go for milk chocolate I'd cut the sugar in the actual muffins to balance it

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350

The approach to making these muffins is simple enough:

First up wash the zucchini, take off the tips and put it through a blender with the milk, applesauce and oil.

Combine this mixture with the rest of the liquids. Mix the dry ingredients minus the chocolate and combine the, with the wets until homogeneous.

Add chocolate, stir briefly and bake for 20 minutes!