Triple Chocolate Chunk Muffins (Whole Foods Knock-Off)

These were made by a 15-year-old girl from the Netherlands. I'm impressed! I'm not sure where the "triple" part comes in, so I'm renaming them "Double Chocolate Chunk Muffins." I didn't follow the directions exactly (more about that at the end), but I will do so more closely the next time as I think that would make them even better. Still though, they turned out pretty good!

INGREDIENTS

1-3/4 c oats

3 egg whites

3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa

1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt (or regular plain low fat yogurt)

1/2 tsp cream of tartar (or 1-1/2 Tbsp. vinegar, or 1/2 tsp lemon juice)

1-1/2 tsp. baking powder

1-1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/4 tsp. salt

1 cup hot water

1 cup sugar substitute or 1/4 cup + 2 tbs Stevia

1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (or use dark or white chocolate or peanut butter chips)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line 2 (12-cup) mini-muffin pans or 1 (12-cup) regular muffin pan with cupcake liners. Set aside. In a blender (or food processor), mix all of the ingredients together, except for the chocolate chips. Blend until oats are ground and mixture is smooth. Place mixture in a bowl and gently stir in 1/2 of the chocolate chips. Set the rest of the chips aside. Scoop mixture into prepared muffin pans. Bake for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, remove muffins from the oven (but don’t shut oven off), and distribute the other half of the chocolate chips on top of each muffin.* (This was the most difficult part! The chips kept rolling off onto the pan.) Place  the muffins back into the oven and bake for an additional 2-5 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. 

*Note, you could skip this step by putting all of the chips in the batter, and baking the muffins for 12-15 min straight, but this method gives the muffins the traditional Whole Foods ‘VitaTop Muffin’ look with the chocolate chips on top!

Cool muffins before removing from pan.

Servings: 24 Mini-Muffins or 12 Regular-sized Muffins

Notes: I was really unprepared. I did not have unsweetened cocoa, unsweetened applesauce, plain yogurt, or cream of tartar. I used regular cocoa, regular applesauce, low-fat vanilla yogurt and lemon juice in place of the cream of tartar (gotta love the internet for that one!). I also used dark chocolate chips (because I like them better) and forgot to mix half into the batter before cooking. Because I was using all of these pre-sweetened ingredients, I wasn't sure how much additional sweetener to add, so I just squirted a little bit of honey into the mix (probably only 1/8 cup). I would probably add 1/2 cup next time. I would also make sure to mix the chocolate chips into the batter as directed. Kayleigh ate the chips off the top of hers and then didn't like the muffin part and, I have to admit, just the muffin by itself was kind of tasteless. I talked her into making sure she had a chocolate chip in every bite and she ended up eating two of them. If they had been mixed in, that wouldn't have been an issue. All in all, as healthy as these are, they could have been even more so had I had the right ingredients on hand. But hey, my girl ate oatmeal and didn't even know it! I'm calling that progress.