Chocolate Oat Muffins

Screenshot

There is never, in my opinion, a bad time to eat chocolate. Breakfast, lunch, dinner or snack. Chocolate totally rules!

One of my favorite things used to be my Saturday morning chocolate muffin that my husband would trek out, rain or shine, snow or heat and get for me. Chocolate with chocolate chips. They called it a muffin, but I knew it for what is really was…a little slice of heaven.

Apparently, my dog concurred, since I left the muffin top(the best part) unguarded one morning (about 3 feet from where my husband was sitting, supposedly watching her) to answer the phone (a call I’m convinced she somehow placed), and when I came back, she had managed to wolf down the whole thing, and cover the plate back up with my napkin so I wouldn’t know.

Sometimes a girl’s just gotta have chocolate!

So now that I am trying to be healthier, the problem was: how do I still enjoy my chocolate muffin?

The answer turned out to involve oats, protein powder, strawberries and LOTS of chocolate!

3 cups of rolled oats (not instant) Grind 2 of the cups to powder and leave the last cup whole.
2 scoops of chocolate protein powder (3/4 cup)
4 Tablespoons cacao powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon sea salt
1 cup chocolate chips (I use Lily’s which are vegan)

1 large package strawberries, washed, hulled and pureed to 1 1/2 cups (you can also pulse a few extra for strawberry chunks in the muffins if you want)*
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/2 cup nut milk (I use almond)*
1 1/2 Tablespoons apple cider vinegar

* you can sub out 2/3 cup of applesauce for the strawberries and increase the almond milk to 1 1/2 cups instead of 1/2 cup

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 and line 14 muffin tins.
Mix all dry ingredients
Mix all wet ingredients
Combine wet and dry ingredients and let the batter sit for about 10-15 minutes. This is where the magic happens; The batter will get puffy!
Using an ice cream scoop, put one scoop in each cup.
Bake 15 minutes, cool in pan for about another 15 minutes, then remove to rack to cool completely. At this point, I am usually shoveling them in, so I can’t say I’ve ever had a completely cool one.

These also freeze beautifully, and thaw out in the microwave with no problems, so I can also have them throughout the week.

Enjoy!