There’s a recipe I’ve used 1000 times to make healthy muffins but I wanted to revamp it into something a bit different - this is the result. Apparently there is a whole fascination with people who only like eating the tops of muffins! As this is not a traditional muffin recipe, you don’t quite get the same crusty top but what you do have is a perfectly sized sweet treat, packed full of nutritious ingredients!
My family and friends are my usual taste testers but my work team got a batch of these this week ahead of my releasing the recipes. Trust me- some of them are very cynical! one of the girls tells me my recipes “sound disgusting” but taste amazing! I’ll absolutely take that as a compliment!!
You can use regular oats or gluten free oats if you are GF! The choice of chocolate is entirely up to you. I use regular dark chocolate chips. Although I use only a little maple syrup to reduce the refined sugars in the recipe, I have added crystallised ginger which obviously contains refined sugars. The crystallised ginger adds a really nice zing to the muffin tops! If you’re hard on reducing refined sugars completely, omit and add an extra 1/2-1tsp ground ginger to compensate and keep the recipe full of flavour.
These are perfect for a mid-afternoon snack with a coffee and a banana. All sweet cravings firmly satisfied! Why not try them and let me know what you think?
Ginger and Dark Chocolate “muffin tops”
Makes 25-28 Muffin Tops
Ingredients
200g ground almonds
120g old-fashioned rolled oats (use gluten-free if sensitive)
80g chopped pecans
1 teaspoon mixed spice
2 tsp ground ginger
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
3 eggs, beaten
1 courgette, grated
220g (2 medium sized) carrotgrated
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1/2 cup maple syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla
150g dark chocolate chips
100g chopped Crystallised ginger
NB. I used a whoopie pie tin for the recipe to get a uniform shape to each “muffin top” otherwise you can do them free form on a flat baking mat. They work both ways!
Method
1- Pre-heat the oven to 350°F.
2- In a large bowl, mix together the eggs, butter, maple syrup, and vanilla. Stir until combined. Add the carrot and courgette.
3- Then add the almond meal, oats, pecans, cinnamon, ginger, dark chocolate chips, bicarbonate of soda and salt. Mix until just combined.
4- Place a Spoonful of the batter into each hole of a whoopie pie tin or freeform on a a large flat baking tray.
5- Bake until the muffins are nicely browned on top and a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean, about 23-25 minutes.