Gad Zooks!
Two well-sized zucchinis, left on my doorstep, two days into Autumn.
One chocolate zucchini cupcake recipe stumbled upon while looking for something else entirely.
Delicious happenstance. Sweets ordered up by the Universe. Who am I to question?
The recipe, from Heidi Swanson’s 101 Cookbooks blog: is itself a riff on a recipe from the Rebar Cookbook. I didn’t really riff on this one. Here’s what you’ll do:
Chocolate Zucchini Cupcakes
1 1/2 cups brown sugar, packed
1/4 cup melted butter
3/4 cup coconut oil
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup buttermilk
2 cups grated zucchini (use the biggest grate)
1 cup chocolate chips
2 cups unbleached flour
1 cup cocoa, sifted (I used Droste)
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp allspice
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
Preheat oven to 350.
In a medium bowl mix the sugar, butter and oil. (Note that you CAN use vegetable oil, but I opted for Heidi’s suggestion of coconut oil instead. I’d never used it, and apparently, if you use the un-refined kind, you’ll get just the slightest, tantalizing whiff of coconut before you close your mouth on one of these. Alas, my store didn’t have this, so I went ahead and got the refined.)
If you microwave your coconut oil first, just for a few seconds, it will be liquid. I don’t know if this changes anything about the texture of the end product, but it didn’t seem to.
Add the eggs, whisking each one into the batter as you go.
Stir in the vanilla, buttermilk, zucchini and chocolate chips.
In a separate, larger bowl, mix the dry ingredients. Pour in the wet and mix well. Spoon the batter into your muffin tins, and bake for about 35 minutes. Don’t overbake. You want these moist.
Cool for a few minutes, then transfer to a wire rack.
You could frost these. Some have, to cute results. But I thought that would be gilding the lily. These are perfect as is: dense, chocolatey, not too sweet.
Simple. Delicious. Nom.
The Nits fell all over these. They didn’t last long enough to go into Tupperware.
And in case you were wondering, yes, you can eat these for breakfast.
The Universe gives you permission.
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