The Tastiest Way to Eat Your Veggies
If your garden is bursting with zucchini and simply you can’t bear to make one more loaf of zucchini bread, I’ve got you covered! These chocolate zucchini muffins are an easy and tasty way to use up summer zucchini or sneak veggies into a sweet treat. They are moist, fudgy, and incredibly chocolatey, thanks to the zucchini and a few other carefully selected ingredients. This recipe comes together in minutes without a mixer, which I love. It’s adapted from my chocolate muffins, and I use the same technique of “blooming” the cocoa powder with hot water here. This simple step yields a more intense chocolate flavor and fudgier texture–it makes a big difference! Personally, I love making these in the summer when zucchini is abundant, but really you can make them year-round with grocery store zucchini too. The good thing is, there is not one trace of green in the final product, which means these muffins are great for kids and picky eaters! I can’t wait for you to try them.
What You Need
While we are using only a handful of ingredients in this easy recipe, there are a few you should take note of before diving in.
Zucchini. How many zucchini you’ll need varies widely depending on the size. If using supermarket zucchini, which are often about the size of a cucumber, you can usually get away with a single one. Shred your zucchini, but don’t shred so much that it becomes a pulp. You will also need to blot the excess liquid from the zucchini before adding it to the batter; I provide instructions for this in the recipe notes below. If you’ve made my zucchini roll before, you know how to do this! Oil. I’ve been trying to move away from using canola and vegetable oil in my baking, and using avocado oil in the recipe worked out nicely for me. It’s a neutral oil, which means it doesn’t impart any flavor into the finished product (which we want!). Hot water. This is super important for blooming the cocoa and intensifying its flavor! You want your water to be very hot, steamy, or even boiling. Sour cream. Sour cream adds a rich texture and depth of flavor, and it also helps keep these muffins moist. Cocoa powder. Stick with natural cocoa powder here since we are using baking soda. Using dutch process cocoa could lead to leavening issues; you can read more about this in my natural vs. dutch process cocoa post.
SAM’S TIP: I always add chocolate chips to my chocolate zucchini muffins, but you can customize yours with other add-ins like nuts, dried fruit, or even just different flavored chips (white chocolate or even peanut butter chips would be good!). Remember, this is just an overview of the ingredients I used and why. For the full recipe please scroll down to the bottom of the post!
How to Make Chocolate Zucchini Muffins
SAM’S TIP: Be careful to not over-mix the muffin batter when combining the wet and dry ingredients (and whatever you do, do NOT use an electric mixer!). Over-mixed muffins will turn out dense instead of moist and tender. Would you like to see more sneaky hidden veggie recipes? Let me know in the comments! Enjoy! Let’s bake together! I’ll be walking you through all the steps in my written recipe and video below! If you try this recipe, be sure to tag me on Instagram, and you can also find me on YouTube and Facebook
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