I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again…. muffins can be dangerous territory.
Out and about there’s not many muffins you can find that are truly healthy, most convenience stores, grocery stores, and fast food muffins are similar to donuts when it comes to nutritional quality, so therefore I always recommend you make yo’ muffins at home!
These muffins were part of my last delivery for one of my clients. (I still do baking batches for one lovely client of mine, but have stopped the rest of my deliveries to focus my energy back on my nutritional consulting business – more on this in a future post where I will update you on life’s happenings!) I think she’s just as much of a chocolate fan as me!
I wanted to make muffins that were healthy and had a rich chocolate taste at the same time.
Challenging. I know!
I wanted to use spelt flour, as I had some awesome stoneground organic spelt flour left to use up, and so I searched the blogosphere for some inspiration! I came across a lovely recipe by Where Wishes Come From and put some NITK twists on it!
The best part of these muffins is the crispy almost caramelized crust top! The natural sugars from the pure maple syrup create this delicious feature of the muffin, and they are light, fluffy, and soft inside!
It’s interesting to me how so many muffins are made with white flour. Spelt flour is a fantastic alternative, if you don’t need gluten free, and it still makes the muffins airy, and not overly dense, like a whole wheat flour would. And if your looking to get some extra fibre into the kiddies tummies, these are a great way to do it!
… just say it’s a chocolate cupcake sans icing 😉
These definitely aren’t as sweet as a cupcake, as the sweetener is kept to a minimum, but they still have a nice sweetness to them, and you could always add a little extra pure maple syrup or coconut palm sugar if you feel the need!
- ½ cup vegetable oil
- ¾ cup unsweetened almond milk
- ½ cup pure maple syrup
- ¼ cup coconut palm sugar
- 2 cups whole grain spelt flour
- ¼ cup raw cocoa powder
- 2 tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp salt
- ½ cup dark chocolate chips (vegan)
- Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees.
- In a bowl combine all wet ingredients and whisk together.
- In another large bowl combine all of the dry ingredients, except for the chocolate chips.
- Add the wet to the dry and mix well. It should be a fairly loose mixture.
- Fold in the chocolate chips.
- Divide the mixture into a 12 muffin tin, lined with muffin wrappers.
- Bake for 15 mins or until a skewer comes out clean.
*recipe adapted from Where Wishes Come From
If you are intimidated by baking like I once was, just start with simple recipes like this one, and I promise you’ll be baking up a storm in no time!
Have a lovely Wednesday!
Nutritionist in the Kitch
Hi
These look wonderful!
I’m not so strictly vegan, so pardon my ignorance – but would say a flax egg enhance the recipe at all?
Meaning when one is not eating any eggs, do vegan baked recipes function perfectly fine without them and without any substitution?
Additionally if I would like to add even more filling ing. inside to keep my kids tummies fuller for longer (long school day), would ground flax seed be a welcome ingredient? Any other suggestions?
Hi there! Because this is a baked recipe, and finely tuned, I would not add anything other than perhaps folding in a small amount of nuts, dark chocolate chips, or berries to the batter before scooping into the muffin tin!
Hi there!
This recipe look great, it’s exactly what I had in mind when I set out to find a way to use spelt flour! Do you think it would be possible to sub the vegetable oil for coconut oil?
Thanks so much!!
Definitely! Glad you found it Holly! 🙂
Hi there! I was looking for a spelt flour recipe and found your wonderful blog! We made these with my 2,5yrs old daughter and we loved it! (Had no maple sirup,so we used just honey -as I find honey sweet enough,we left out the sugar and it was sweet enough.)
I have to say that I love the recipes here,healthy,nutritious,easy to make and I’m sure it’s yummy too. Thank you! Lucia
Hi Lucia! Thanks so much for the feedback! I’m so happy you enjoyed the recipe with your daughter 🙂
These are soo good! I didn’t have everything exactly so I had to sub in olive oil + ghee for oil and cashew milk for almond. I used organic sprouted spelt and whole grain spelt flours 50/50. I actually forgot the palm sugar but they were still good (then again I’m always cutting recipe sugars bc I don’t like too much sweetness). Thank you for the recipe, looking forward to making it as listed.
So glad you enjoyed these and even without the added sugar! Thank you for the feedback Cherish!
These were yummy! I only had a little maple syrup, so I used honey for the rest. I had Zulka sugar, so I used it for the quarter cup. I used Ghirardelli semi sweet chocolate chips. Very good recipe for the chocolate lover using spelt flour.
Sounds like great adaptations Janet! Glad you enjoyed!!
Thanks so much for linking back to my recipe! These are a great hit with my entire family and we make them all the time. I’ll have to give your version a try too!
These look great! I love how you can pretty much make any type of muffins or cupcakes and get your cakefix sorted out without going overboard, hell, you could have at least two or three of these without feeling ANY guilt 😀 Life’s for living, after all 🙂
You could easily melt some stevia sweetened dark chocolate for an extra bit of indulgence, buuut it looks like they wont even need that ^ ^ Thanks for the great recipe Christal, I’ve been wanting to try and bake with spelt but have yet to get around to it! Now I have more of an excuse to do it 😀 x
Hey Julie! It’s true, these are like little bites of healthier cake! Lol! Yes you definitely could do the stevia/chocolate topping… mmmmm!
This is a beautiful recipe; we are huge chocolate chip cookie lovers in our family. My kids love them. We make them a little different for our dieting group, we use real dark chocolate and top it off with raw chocolate (cacao nips).