Healthy Bittersweet Chocolate Quinoa Muffins

I get it.  The title of this post is…  a little strange.  Chocolate Quinoa Muffins??  Oh yes, I put quinoa in a dessert.  And it works!

These Healthy Bittersweet Chocolate Quinoa Muffins are super light and fluffy, like cupcakes, but hearty and filling (perfect for breakfast!), like muffins.  They’re not overly sweet or heavy, so they’re the best thing to eat first thing in the morning along with a cup of coffee.  It’s seriously hard to believe these chocolatey muffins are low calorie, low fat, sugar free, gluten free, AND vegan!

Back in high school, during my I’ll-eat-whatever-tastes-good-even-if-it’s-terrible-for-my-body years, I’d walk (more like run) to the cafeteria to buy a chocolate chip muffin before classes started.  I’m not sure why I kept buying those muffins, though.  They were always a bit dry and crumbly, despite being made with typical unhealthy baking ingredients like white flour, white sugar, and a ton of oil and butter.  Well, now that I list off the ingredients, THAT’S exactly why I kept buying those muffins — all that sugar is addicting!  *smacks self in forehead*

Well, now I know better.  I refuse to spend $4 on a single muffin made with crap ingredients.  Especially now that I’ve got these Chocolate Quinoa Muffins in my sights!

These Healthy Bittersweet Chocolate Quinoa Muffins are so fluffy, so springy, and so delicious.  It’s crazy that such healthy ingredients like whole grain quinoa flour and sorghum flour, omega 3-rich flaxseed, and dairy-free yogurt can make such a satisfying treat.

As you may have noticed from the title, these are Bittersweet Chocolate Quinoa Muffins.  I’ll be the first to admit, I’m not a fan of bittersweet chocolate.  I agree 100% with Ina Garten who always says on her show, Barefoot Contessa, that bittersweet chocolate is too bitter and semisweet chocolate is too sweet.  Well, I don’t think anything is too sweet, so I guess I just agree with the first part ?

As I was whipping up these muffins, I wasn’t sure what to expect.  After putting the muffin tin in the oven to bake off, I immediately started pacing around the kitchen.  How would they taste??

When the timer went off, I peeked through the oven door.  They looked…  perfect!  I took the muffins out of the oven and watched them cool.  Once they were cool enough to handle, I sunk my teeth into one of the muffins.  To my surprise, they were pretty good.  Definitely not your typical sugary baked good — these are bittersweet, sophisticated, hearty, and wholesome.

Still unsure if these were post-worthy, I wrapped them up for later.  Sometimes with chocolatey baked goods, muffins, cupcakes, and even cookies, they need to rest overnight in order for the flavors to develop.  I taste tested the muffins once again the next day, and they were WAY better!  Not as bitter and definitely not as quinoa-y.  One bite and I wanted more.  Ended up eating three…  ?

This surprised me, because I have a major sweet tooth.  I like my sweets SWEET.  You know, the kind of sweet that will make your teeth twinge and stomach ache.  So why did I like these muffins so much?  I think it’s because they were just sweet enough where you wanted to grab another one.  Kind of like eating potato chips, where each chip is just salty enough where you want to grab another few hundred.

12 muffins

Healthy Bittersweet Chocolate Quinoa Muffins

Ingredients:

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and spray your cupcake tin with cooking spray (or use silicone muffin liners, these cupcakes will stick to paper liners).
2. In a small bowl, whisk together the quinoa flour, sorghum flour, cocoa powder, flaxseed, baking powder, baking soda, instant coffee, and salt.
3. In a large bowl, whisk together the yogurt, almond milk, vanilla extract, and stevia extracts.  Whisk until completely smooth.  Dump the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients and whisk until the batter is even.
4. Scoop the batter into the cupcake tins and bake for ~17-18 minutes, or until surface of the cupcakes spring back when tapped. Let cool in the pan for ~1 hour, then transfer to a wire cooling rack to cool completely.  Serve and enjoy!  To store, place in a tightly sealed container in the fridge for up to 5 days.

Notes:

Here is the recipe’s nutrition label:

Can you believe it?  90-calorie, low fat, fiber-rich, nutritionally balanced chocolate muffins!!  Of all things…

Since these Chocolate Quinoa Muffins have the appearance of cupcakes, but are healthy and hearty like muffins, I topped some off with Chocolate Frosting.  If you want a sweeter treat, you can add chocolate chips to the batter or frost them off like I did:

These don’t look healthy and sure don’t taste healthy, but they are!

Enjoy! ?

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With love and good eats,

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– Jess

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Be sure to follow @DessertsWithBenefits on Instagram!  If you try this recipe, make sure to snap a picture of it, tag me @DessertsWithBenefits, and hashtag #DessertsWithBenefits.  I’d love to see it and feature you on #FanFaveFridays!

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