Chocolate Zucchini

I like to bake. I don't always follow directions.  I recently had some extra zucchinis from the garden and I was feeling like something chocolatey but not too sweet, so I found a recipe for these Oil Free Zucchini Muffins. But of course, I like to add stuff and delete stuff and mess things up a bit. The recipe was adapted from here. It specifically said not to use whole wheat flour.

But I wanted to.

(PS she did say you could use whole wheat pastry flour if you want to, but that you shouldn't use regular whole wheat flour.) I also use Splenda® rather than sugar most of the time, but you can use agave syrup or maple syrup or sugar if you like. Also, in the end, she was right, the whole wheat flour made the batter a little gummy, so I added a bit of applesauce just for fun.

Oil-Free Chocolate Zucchini Walnut Muffins

Yield: 20 - 24 muffins

Ingredients:

1 flax egg (1 tbsp ground flax + 3 tbsp water)
2 cups zucchini
1 cup almond milk (or regular milk)
2 tsp  lemon juice (or apple cider vinegar)
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups whole wheat (pastry) flour (or all-purpose)
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup Splenda^® (or sugar)
1/3 cup semi sweet chocolate chips
2/3 cup walnuts, chopped
*optional: 
3 tbsp maple syrup
1/2 - 1 cup applesauce (depending on moisture level. I added this at the end)

- Mix flax and water together and set aside to thicken. Mix almond milk and lemon together and set aside to curdle.

- Mix all dry ingredients together.

- Mix all wet ingredients, including flax egg and almond milk together, then add in chocolate chips and nuts. Combine the wet ingredients with the dry.

- Put 1/4 cup of batter into each section of a greased muffin tin using a 1/4 measuring cup.

- Bake for 15-20 minutes at 350 degrees. Muffins are done when toothpick comes out clean. Cool on cooling rack in the tin before taking them out of the tin and letting them cool completely.

- Try not to eat three of them right away like I did.

- Take them to work and give them away before you eat all 24 of them. 

- Get strange looks when you use the word "chocolate" and the word "zucchini" in the same sentence.

Now, since I am on the subject of recipes and food, I want to talk about something exciting coming up. My friends Jill and Laura are starting a new feature called What's for Dinner, which is a weekly collection of posts (and a link up) about menu planning. It's purpose is to encourage each other and to hold each other accountable as we purposefully plan out regular, weekly meal menus. These posts will be on Sundays and I am looking forward to participating, because I love planning out my weekly meals, but can always use tips from those more experienced and better at it than I am.

So, if you feel like doing a post about YOUR meal plan, or you want to post a recipe or get recipe ideas for fall, or if you want to check out how other people are organizing their eating, how they have time to do it with a busy schedule, or how they stay healthy with so many other things going on, sign up, or just go and check up their link up on Sundays!

Where do you get your recipe inspiration? Do you plan out your meals for the week in advance? What is your favorite kind of muffin?

Cake Pops

Have you seen these at Starbucks and wondered, "how do they make those?"

Well, wonder no longer. I am here to tell you.

My friend and I made these for her going away party (I know...she wanted to do it!) and it was super easy!

We made two different kinds - chocolate cake pops with milk chocolate coating and strawberry cake pops with (blue) white chocolate coating.

Ingredients: 

1 box regular cake mix, any kind you want

(and whatever ingredients necessary to make the cake)

1 tub of frosting (any kind - we used cream cheese)

1 package of Wilton's candy melts (we got them at Michaels*they have all kinds of colors!)

(here are some tips on how to use these, clean up etc)

Various Sprinkles

Lollipop Sticks (also from Michaels)

Cello Bags (I think they are 3" x 4" but am not positive)

Ribbon

Styrofoam board (to keep pops upright while drying)

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{1}

Bake the cake. Once it's cool crumble it up into a bowl. 

Add half of the frosting. Mix well.

{2)

Roll the mixture into balls. Put on a cookie sheet. Leave in fridge for at least an hour or, even better, overnight. We were on the fast track cake pop making, so we put them in the freezer for about 20 minutes. It worked but I would recommend just making them the night before. 

{3}

Melt the candy melts. To do this, bring a pot of water to a simmer and put a mixing bowl with the candies on top of the pot, kind of a double boiler method. 

{4}

Put the lollipop sticks into the bottom (flatter part) of the cold cake balls and then dip them into the melted chocolate. (HINT: if the chocolate is a little thick, you can add a little bit of vegetable oil to it to thin it out) I don't know if it's becuase we did the fast freezer method, but the balls kept wanting to fall off the stick, so do it as quickly as you can. Don't shake the stick either. We found that if there is too much chocolate, just give it a light twirl to even it out.

{5}

After dipped, add sprinkles and put them one by one into the Styrofoam board to cool/dry. 

{6}

Once dry, we transfered them to a plate to fit new ones in the "cooling rack". We also used a fan, you can kind of see it in the photo above. But don't set it too high or the melted chocolate will go everywhere! 

{7}

Put them in the cello bag. 

{8}

Tie a ribbon on the bag and VOILA. Cake pops!

Here they are, hanging out at the party!

Okay, so if you think the ones we made are cool, check out some of these: 

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**Also if you don't want to mess with pops, you can make cake BALLS: 

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Enjoy your Pop and Ball making!

Have you ever made cake pops? Do you have an "go to" thing you usually make for parties?