Gluten and Dairy Free, lowish carb Coconut Flour Chocolate muffins

Vegetarian - Grain and Gluten Free - Lowish Carb

A little grain free chocolate indulgence - adapted from a keto chocolate muffin makes 10-12 muffins

All my cooking is a bit of an experiment - learn from what doesn't work for you and adapt your recipe accordingly.

Gluten and Dairy Free, lowish carb Coconut Flour Chocolate muffins

Ingredients

• 4 large eggs - room temperature

• 4 tbsp coconut oil - melted.

• 1 cup sugar coconut or natural sugar. (you may need a little bit more so keep some to hand.

• 1 cup of Coconut flour

• 1/2 cup of a nut flour, almond, hazelnut, hemp, etc.

• 1 can coconut milk or equivalent greek yoghurt

• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

• 100gm bar of chocolate broken into pieces or 100gm chocolate chops (I use dark chocolate of at least 85%

• 1/2 cup cacao or cocoa powder

• 1/4 tsp salt

• 2 tsp baking soda

• Dash of apple cider vinegar or lemon juice (activates the baking soda)
  

Method

1. Preheat oven to 175°C and grease or line 12 muffin tin (if you have any left over mix then just make some more)

2. In a food processor add all dry ingredients, sugar, flour, cocoa powder, salt, baking soda (Not the chocolate chips) and blend for 30secs to a minute to mix.

3. Add wet ingredients: eggs, half the can of coconut milk or yoghurt, vanilla essence, oil, lemon juice or vinegar and blend for 4 lots of 30 secs.

4. Check the mixture for texture. Coconut flour absorbs a lot moisture, add some more coconut milk and blend again. the mixture needs to resemble the texture in the picture. Not too dry and yet not too sloppy.
   

5. Taste the mix - does it taste sweet enough? If yes then fine, if no then add a little more sugar and blend for another 2 lots of 30secs. re taste and adjust sweetness where needed, blending the new addition in.

6. For the last 30 sec mix add the chocolate chips

7. Spoon mixture into cup cake cases / tin

8. Bake for 12 mins and check - the cakes will not be cooked, but check anyway. Bake for another 8 mins, and check again. Cakes will probably not be cooked- turn oven down to 170°C and cook probably about another 8-10 mins. Cakes should be firm to touch. Remove from oven and leave to cool.

Variations:

I have made a gorgeous plain vanilla version of this, with chocolate chips or a cake version with a plum compote running through the middle, in a medium rectangular pyrex, but you could also make little muffins with it too.

I substituted the cocoa powder for extra nut flour and added a dash more vanilla. You can then add chocolate chips (I use 1 bar of Divine Dark chocolate, which I have bashed with a mallet to make pieces) and make a vanilla choc chip version

Or

Grease the dish and add a good layer of batter. I then added light dollops of a plum compote that I had made from cooking down plum windfalls from the garden and sweetened with dates and raisins that had been blended to a paste in my nutribullet. I spread that around on top of the layer with a spatular, and then added the last layer of batter.

Cooked in the oven at 170 for 40 mins, and then turned down to 160 and cooked for a further 20 mins until the sponge felt soft.

If you are doing this with muffins, put a layer of batter in the bottom, then a little spoon of the compote, then the next layer. Cook in the oven as per the chocolate muffins.

Enjoy!