Chocolate & zucchini spelt muffins

I really don’t have time to write today- so I will be brief.  You see, I have a very important job to do, which involves sorting through baked beans, plucking out only the most beautiful ones- those that have remained unscathed from life in a tin can and saving them in an old take-out container aptly labeled hero beans. It’s a very important job.

One of my first ever food styling jobs was of a similar nature and as I sat in a photographers studio on hour six of bean sorting duty a producer asked me if my parents knew what I did for a living. Six years later and I thought I might have moved beyond the realm of bean sorting and so perhaps did my parents. If karma has anything to do with this I would have to say this is me paying penance for being so greedy with the baked beans on Jacket potato days at school. If only I’d known the price I would have to pay! The only part of this day that remains appealing is that I’m still in my pjamas, I am yet to have to turn on the air conditioner and there is World Cup soccer and Wimbledon to have on in the background. Life could be a lot worse.

But I suppose you want to hear less about beans and more about muffins. These are my take on a health muffin- only one might argue that these actually are healthy for you unlike those deceptive bran muffins that lure you in with the promise of tummy-filling bran(!), raisins and minimal fat. It’s all a con I tell you!  The only tummy filling they will do is in further filling out the fatty lining in your gut. I seethe with anger at the very site of them. These more virtuous beauties are actually rather healthy and the chocolate is the only part that is deceptive- tricking you into thinking that you are having something naughty when in actuality you are putting something rather wholesome down your gob. That’s the only kind of culinary trickery that I will abide. You may find that you need a little more sugar- I try to go with the absolute minimum but if you are still a sweet-toothed weakling you may find them not sweet enough.

Chocolate & zucchini spelt muffins

Makes 18

Vegan

200g/1 1/2 cups spelt flour
60g/1/2 cups flax meal
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
30g/1/4 cup cocoa powder
30g/1/4 cup almond meal
125ml/1/2 cup coconut oil
100g/2/3 cup palm sugar (or agave, honey, light brown soft sugar)
185ml/3/4 cup almond milk (or rice, soy, buttermilk, whole milk)
2 tsp vanilla extract
300g/ 1 1/2 cups shredded zucchini

• Heat the oven to 325F/170C/Gas 3. Line an 18 hole muffin tin (or one 12 and one 6) with muffin liners.

•  Sift together all of the dry ingredients, any leftover flax meal can be whisked into the dry.

• In a small saucepan over a low heat stir the palm sugar in the almond milk until it has dissolved. Add the coconut oil and vanilla to to pan and then pour all of the wet mixture into the dry and stir through until almost combined. Fold through the shredded zucchini and fill you muffin cases until full.

• Bake in the oven for 22 minutes, turning once after 15 minutes. The cakes will may a little jiggly in the middle when you touch but this is okay, they will continue to cook out of the oven.