Recipe Review: Chocolate Zucchini Muffins

Chocolate Zucchini Muffins

The past week or so has seen a giant jump in my baking.  I've shared a good portion of what I've baked, but some is just for me.  These muffins fall in the just for me category.  I'm always on the lookout for a good chocolate muffin.  I've tried a lot of recipes from various cookbooks and have so far only run across one that was really good and it made just two large muffins (I tried making four smaller ones and they just weren't the same as the large ones).  Anyway, I came across this recipe for Chocolate Zucchini Muffins from Oh She Glows (one of my favorite blog sites) on Pinterest.  Since I've also recently discovered the joy of zucchini, I had to give them a try.

I'm so glad I did.  They were well worth the effort.  I particularly like the recipes from this blog as they are dairy free.  The flour came out a bit strong to me, but mine could have been on the cusp of needing to be replaced.  Next time, I may go with just unbleached flour or a mix of unbleached with whole wheat pastry flour.  And, I'll use a finer grate on the zucchini, but that is just my personal preference.  Overall, I'm happy to have found a chocolate muffin recipe that is good and has some good for me stuff in it (mostly referring to the zucchini).  Give them a try.

Recipe Review: Coconut Loaf

We had a meet and greet for a new employee in my department at work and I decided that it should be a morning breakfasty kind of thing.  I made Poppy Seed muffins from Mostly Muffins, a wonderful little cookbook I got years ago and have used so much it is literally falling apart.  I have many muffin cookbooks, in all shapes and sizes, and this recipe is one of my favorites.  Most poppy seed muffins have lemon.  This one doesn't.  It does have sour cream, which gives it a very moist texture.  I made mini-muffins rather than full size and as always they were wonderful.

Coconut Loaf

I also wanted to take something else.  I toyed with a blueberry coffee cake or a pound cake or some type of nut bread.  I was going through a little Taste of Home Muffins and Quick Breads cookbook, you know, the ones that you get at check-out registers, that I came across this Coconut Loaf  recipe. I'd wanted to try it for some time, but never had any coconut.  Well, I had coconut, so I gave it a try.  It's simply wonderful!  It's more like a pound cake with a bit of coconut -- the coconut is not overwhelming at all.

I did make a couple of modifications - I used margarine (really not a huge change) and almond milk, leaving this version dairy free.

It sliced fine after it cooled, but the following day it was a little crumbly when sliced.  Not sure why.  Still, it's a wonderful recipe and I'll probably bake it again