Dark chocolate, pear, and ginger. Do I really need to say anything more? Okay, muffins.
If that isn't enough these delicious muffins (for anyone who's counting) contain just 144kcal each, and 0.7g of saturated fat. They are sweet and rich and slightly spiced. They contain no added refined sugar, and don't use any hard to find ingredients. You can pick every single one up at any supermarket. I feel like these will be PERFECT in autumn their little kick of spice and fruity richness.
These muffins vanished over the course of about two days. My health-o-phobe brother (who wont eat vegetarian, sugar-free etc., wholemeal is pushing it, and usually ignores my "healthy" baking full stop) has actually eaten the majority of these. At least four or five. So they definitely passed the taste test with flying colours.
You all know I'm not one for super long introductions (I skip them myself when reading blog posts for a recipe), so I hope that you all enjoy this recipe, and tag me in any pictures over on IG (https://instagram.com/healthy_not_hungry/)...
Ingredients (Makes 12)
- 2 pears (I used sun blush pears, but feel free to use conference , or any other variety. Overripe is fine, but not mushy)
- 50g dark chocolate (I used 25g 81%, and 25g 85%. Try your best to get 75% and above because it really affects the flavour, but you don't have to use exactly what I did)
- 1/3 cup runny honey
- 1 cup oats, with 2tbsp placed to one side for topping (as usual, proper oats. Not the sachets of quick cook ones.)
- 1 1/2 cups plain wholemeal flour
- 2tbsp low fat natural yoghurt (nothing fancy, just the unsweetened basic variety)
- 3/4 cup milk (use whatever you like, but I chose the Alpro coconut milk and it gave brilliant texture and flavour)
- 1 1/2tsp baking powder
- 3/4tsp baking soda
- 1tsp vanilla flavouring
- 2tsp ground ginger (feel free to increase it by another 1/2tsp for a stronger flavour)
- 1tsp ground cinnamon
Method
- Preheat the oven to 190*c, and line a 12 hole muffin tin with 12 muffin cases.
- In one bowl combine the honey, the natural yoghurt, and vanilla flavouring. Grate half of one pear and add to the wet ingredients.
- In another bowl combine the oats, flour, baking powder, baking soda, and the spices. Pour the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients and mix. Add the milk and stir this in until well incorporated, and the mixture slackens- careful not to over mix. Stop once it's come together.
- Chop the chocolate into rough chunks. Now, take the pears and (if desired) slice 12 thin slices to use as decoration. Chop the remaining pear into chunks.
- Fold the pear and chocolate chunks into the muffin batter (again, don't over mix guys!), and then divide the mixture out between the muffin cases.
- Top each muffin with a slice of pear, a sprinkle of oats, and a dash of ground ginger.
- Bake for 15 minutes, until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean (other than some chocolate maybe).
- Once cooked remove your muffins from the muffin tin and place on a cooling rack. Or if you're anything like me, eat once they're cool enough to not burn your mouth. The flavours do come out even more once cooled though- I know because I ate another one about an hour later.
Labels: dark chocolate, dessert, Food, ginger, healthy baking, healthy muffin, muffin, oats, pear, vegetarian, wholemeal
