Extra Moist Vegan Chocolate and Coffee Muffins

Chocolate and coffee, a match made in heaven. They help one another shine and this is thanks to the juxtaposition between coffee’s bitterness and chocolate’s sweetness and nuttiness. These muffins honor this beautiful pair because neither flavor overpowers the other. They come together in 1 bowl and are really moist but not overly dense and oily. That’s all thanks to our secret ingredient, zucchini! Now before you reconsider about making these, you can’t even taste the zucchini and it’s barely visible once baked. And yes, they are child-approved. I’ve made this for a birthday party and all the kids loved it. Zucchini is mostly water so adding them to cake makes perfect sense. It keeps the cake moist by stopping it from drying out. That’s what oil is for, but by using zucchini and oil, we don’t need as much oil to keep the cake moist. This results in a lighter cake that won’t leave you feeling lethargic.
Another ingredient that you should start baking with is flax meal, which is hulled flaxseeds. When mixed with water, they have the perfect eggy consistency and you can’t taste it in your baked goods either. If you don’t have flax meal on hand, you can use ½ cup of these ingredients: applesauce, mashed banana, or pumpkin puree. You can use this batter for muffins, sheet cakes, or loaves. The baking time will vary of course. For these muffins, you need to bake them for 25-30 minutes or until it passes the toothpick test. Now the toothpick test is commonly known as when the toothpick inserted in the cake comes out clean, but this is not ideal. You shouldn’t wait for the toothpick to come out clean because that indicates the cake is going to be dry as it continues baking once out of the oven. So you want a bit of crumb stuck to the toothpick. This way it will continue baking out of the oven, which will leave you with the perfect amount of moisture.

Prep Time

10 minutes

Cook Time

25 minutes

Serving:

12 muffins

Labels:

Ingredients

¼ cup + 2 tbsp (90 ml) milk of choice
1 tsp lemon juice or vinegar
2 flax eggs (2 tbsp flax meal + 6 tbsp warm water)*
1 medium-sized zucchini (170g) shredded and squeezed
⅔ cup (150g) brown sugar
⅓ cup (100ml) olive oil
1 cup(120g) all-purpose flour
⅓ cup(40g) oat flour*
½ cup(50g) cocoa powder
1 tbsp cornstarch
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
2 tsp instant coffee powder
1 cup(120g) chocolate*

Instead of flax eggs, you can also use ½ cup of apple sauce, mashed banana, or pumpkin puree.
Instead of oat flour, you can use wholemeal flour or just use all-purpose flour.
For the chocolate, I used ½ cup chocolate chips and ½ cup chocolate chunks.

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 175C and line the muffin tin. Start by making the buttermilk: Add 1 tsp of lemon juice to the lukewarm milk, and mix. After 5 minutes, add the instant coffee powder to the buttermilk and mix, set aside. For the flax eggs: mix 2 tbsp of flax meal with 6 tbsp warm water and set aside, it should turn gelatinous. Shred the zucchini using the large holes of the box grater. Squeeze most of the juice out using your hands, set aside.

2. In a large bowl mix the brown sugar with the oil. Add in the flax eggs and mix until homogenous. Add in the shredded zucchini and mix well. Place a sieve over the bowl and add the flours, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, cornstarch, and salt. Sift and slightly mix the dry ingredients in, about 30% of the way. Add ½ of the coffee buttermilk mixture to the bowl and mix until 70% of the way combined. Add in the rest of the buttermilk and mix until just combined. Toss in half of the chocolate and mix, do not over-mix!

3. Scoop the batter into the muffin tin. Fill them ⅔ of the way. I filled them using an ice cream scooper (1.5 scoops for each muffin). Gently tap the tray on a flat surface to get rid of air bubbles. Top with the remaining chocolate and bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out with a bit of crumb stuck to it.

Now you’re left with a dozen of heavenly muffins and a house that smells like a trendy bakery!