Ceara's Kitchen

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Dark Chocolate-Chip Pumpkin Muffins

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Muffins have always been one of my all time favourite mid-afternoon snack foods!

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These muffins are super tasty and easy to make. They are chocolatey, soft and bring you the same comfort that a good ol’ chocolate chip muffin brings you. They melt in your mouth and leave you feeling great! As a plus, they are full of healthy fats, nutrients and free of any refined sugars.
 
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I made these this weekend for one of my close friends who was visiting me from out of town. We had not seen each other since we were on exchange in France together… this was well over a year ago – how times flies! We caught up and had lots of fun over the weekend exploring the city, going out and catching up over good eats 🙂 We enjoyed these muffins as a perfect breakfast the next day after a fun girl’s night out 😀  Sharing food and enjoying it with great friends is probably my favourite parts of baking and cooking!

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Muffins and I share a history together – when I was in high school, on my way home, there was a muffin shop that sold the best, warm chocolate chip, melt-in your mouth muffins. I looked up the nutritional information for these muffins and it’s not pretty… each muffins contains around 20 grams of fat and 500 calories. It’s no wonder I often walked around feeling sluggish after school. I think it’s also no surprise that around this time I started to gain weight and feel addicted to foods pumped full of refined flours, butter and sugars! 

My muffins contain around 6 grams of healthy fats, have the perfect amount of cane sugar and are less than 200 calories 🙂

One of my favourite parts about being healthy and putting “good” energy–pumping foods into my body is that I still enjoy all the desserts I did before – but healthier versions of them! I think for a lot of people healthy is sometimes understood as a “dirty” word that is a bit abstract and results in food that is sub-par from other unhealthy foods. I used to almost be “scared” to make something healthier by using less sugar and oil because I was worried that the people I made it for would find it “healthy tasting” and not like it as much as the unhealthy version. This muffin proves that this way of thinking could not be farther from the truth!  And the best part is, since I’ve healthified this old favourite of mine, I work it – or something else chocolatey I love – into my diet almost every day! Being healthy for me and enjoying the desserts I love go hand in hand with each other! 🙂

 
Here’s to being healthy, not living a life of deprivation and enjoying the things we love. Wishing everyone a wonderful week and I hope you enjoy these muffins as much as we did!
Pumpkin Muffins with Dark Chocolate Chip Chunks
 
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Serves: 12
Ingredients
Dry Ingredients
  • 2 cups flour (I used 1 cup spelt and 1 cup white whole wheat)
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • ½ tsp salt
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • ½ tsp nutmeg
  • ½ tsp ginger
"Wet" Ingredients
  • ½ cup cane sugar*
  • 1 tbsp honey or maple syrup
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 3 tbsp coconut oil (melted)*
  • 1 and ½ cup pumpkin puree
  • ½ cup milk of choice *room temperature (a touch more or less if your dough seems a bit dry)
  • 50 grams dark chocolate (broken up into little pieces) (or ⅓ cup chocolate chips)
Directions
  1. Pre-heat oven to 350ºf or 180ºc.
  2. Put dry ingredients in a medium size bowl. Mix until all the spices are nicely dispersed.
  3. Put wet ingredients in a large bowl (except chocolate chips). Whisk together until very smooth and creamy.
  4. Add flour mixture to the wet ingredients. Fold the dry and the wet together until you cannot see any flour. The less you "work" the dough the fluffier your muffins will turn out!
  5. Fold in chocolate "chips".
  6. Spoon muffin mixture into lightly greased muffin tin so that each muffin is ¾ of the way full!
  7. Bake for twenty minutes.
  8. Let sit for 10 minutes and Voila! Enjoy!
Notes
- These muffins work great with white whole wheat, spelt or all-purpose flour (If you use 100% spelt you will have a much denser muffin!). I used one cup white whole wheat and one cup spelt flour!
- If you don't have cane sugar on hand use white or a light brown sugar.
- If you don't have any coconut oil on hand you can also use walnut oil, canola oil, peanut oil...
- If you want to make these muffins lower in fat you can try subbing some of the coconut oil for pumpkin puree but this will result in a "cakier" muffin.
Nutritional Benefits: High in Vitamin A, selenium, phosphorus, manganese and low in cholesterol 🙂
Nutrition Information
Calories: 2243 Fat: 66g Saturated fat: 49g Unsaturated fat: 12g Carbohydrates: 379g Sugar: 156g Sodium: 1279mg Fiber: 23g Protein: 37g Cholesterol: 13mg
 
My Question to you!
I love making baked goods or cooking one of my favourite dishes and sharing it with loved ones! Let’s just say that a lot of my friends and family are “foodies” like me and we enjoy eating together and discussing what we eat. With healthy recipes like this you can share, eat, love and enjoy without worrying about feeling “stuffed” or “groggy” after.  Food is just so much better when it’s enjoyed with someone that you care about!
What is your favourite food to share with loved ones?

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