Chocolate Zucchini Muffins

Ah, September. The time of year where kids are going back to school, the weather is beginning to turn, and your friends and neighbors try to pawn off ten-pound zucchinis on you.

I love zucchini, I really do. I have even (unsuccessfully) tried to grow them on my porch before. But it seems funny when I go to church or volunteer at the local high school, and somehow come back with enormous zucchini, because I cannot resist free produce.

Fairly recently, I used up maybe a pound of one such squash (they are a summer squash according to the wikipedia) in ratatouille, and another half-pound of it in soup. But I still had about a foot of the vegetable to use up. I looked at a number of zucchini bread recipes, but most of them used a mere cup of zucchini.

I stumbled upon this recipe, and the fact that it used up 3 cups of zucchini meant I had to try it. It was already a really good recipe, but I made a few tweaks, including making it dairy-free without using soy.

This is the sort of muffin that seems rather virtuous; it contains vegetables, whole grains, and not too much fat or sugar. I like that it isn't very sweet, thar makes it a pretty good breakfast food.

I used an all-purpose gluten-free flour mix, which was about 2:1:1:1:1 of sorghum, millet, quinoa, oat and brown rice flour, respectively.

Make sure that your flours, vanilla extract, cocoa powder etc. are gluten-free and dairy-free, if those allergies apply to you.

Chocolate Zucchini Muffins, gluten and dairy-free

2 cups GF flour mix
1.5 tsp xanthan gum
0.5 tsp salt
1.5 tsp baking soda
0.5 c cocoa powder
1 tsp cinnamon (optional)
0.5 c granulated sugar
0.5 c brown sugar
3 large eggs
0.5 c vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 cups shredded zucchini

Put the shredded zucchini into a strainer over a bowl, and gently press down on the zucchini with the back of a spoon, to drain. Allow excess liquid to drip off while you make the batter. Set aside.

Preheat oven to 350° F.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, gum, salt, baking soda, and cocoa powder. Set aside.

In a large bowl, stir together the sugars, eggs, vegetable oil and vanilla until the batter is combined. Stir in the zucchini. Stir in the flour mixture.

Fill muffin tins half full of batter. Alternatively, place the batter in a bread tin.

Bake muffins for 23-30 minutes, and loaves for 50 minutes. After the muffins or loaf has cooled for five minutes in its tin, remove the muffins/loaf and place on a wire rack to finish cooling. This prevents a soggy surface.

Makes 24 muffins