Lately, I’ve been craving sweets a lot. Especially baked goods made it somehow very high on my list of desired things on my plate. I tried looking for low carb chocolate muffins, but I wasn’t very satisfied by what I found. In the end, I found inspiration at several places and made up my own recipe, trying to make it delicious, simple and low carb. That’s how my recipe for low carb chocolate avocado muffins came to life.
Low Carb Chocolate Avocado Muffins
I made muffins in the past (check out my chocolate chip muffins with pumpkin purée or my protein powder apple muffins), but they were still relatively basic in the ingredients. This time I went a little further with the recipe for my low carb chocolate avocado muffins and tried plenty of new baking items.
Low Carb Chocolate Avocado Muffins
Low Carb Chocolate Avocado Muffins: Avocado
Avocados are a fruit and very versatile. Mostly you might know it processed into guacamole (a very delicious dip). Or as a topping in your salad or burger. But there’s much more you can do with an avocado. One use for instance, would be as a replacement for butter and oil in baked goods. Replacing butter or oil with an avocado doesn’t only reduce the calorie intake of your food, it can also potentially make it vegan.
Next to that I used the avocado to add some extra nutrients into my low carb chocolate avocado muffins. Avocados are full of many vitamins and minerals, but also low on carbohydrates and protein and full of healthy fats.
Low Carb Chocolate Avocado Muffins: Coconut Flour
In the past I already cooked with hazelnut and almond flour (check out my recipe for a low carb raspberry cake). I had a mixed relationship with coconuts, but this changed in a positive direction. That’s how I stumbled over the coconut flour. And it’s not only low in carbohydrates, it’s also rich in fibres any many micro-nutrients
For the people having issues with gluten, you are good to go too, as coconut flour is gluten-free. Basically, coconut flour is the ground meat of the coconut.
But swapping some of your regular flour with coconut flour is also a good idea when it comes to taste. You can give your food a little twist with the addition of the coconut flour. That being said, be aware that you cannot swap coconut flour in a 1:1 ratio with regular flour. They are no equals. You can try to swap a third and see out the dough turns out. You might need to add a little more liquid as coconut flour can absorb plenty of liquid.
At ggiswheatfree you find a neat overview of the different gluten free flours out there
Low Carb Chocolate Avocado Muffins: Erythritol
Did you ever wonder how there could be sweet drinks with zero calories out there? Well, erythritol is one of those reasons, or more precisely sweet tasting sugar alcohols to which erythritol belongs to.
Sugar
This means that erythritol has almost no calories 0,2 calories per gramme, with a sweetness of around 2/3 of what your average sugar has. As there are no carbohydrates in erythritol is has no negative impact on your blood sugar and your insulin. This is of course, a good thing for people on a low carb or ketogenic diet.
Erythritol is not a new discovery, it is a known sugar alcohol since 1848 and even occurs naturally in fermented food or some fruits. Generally, it is even side effect free. Only rarely it can cause allergic hives. When consumed in doses over 50 grammes it may cause an increase in nausea or maybe stomach rumbling. Int the case of this recipe you would have to eat 2/3 at once to get there.
As always I am very keen on your feedback on my recipe. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!
Low Carb Chocolate Avocado Muffins with Coffee
- 65 g cocunut flour
- 35 g cacao powder (or cocoa)
- 15 g baking powder (1 package)
- 1/4 tsp. salt
- 1 medium avocado (mine was around 190g)
- 75 g erythritol (or your average sugar)
- 2 large eggs
- 1 pod vanilla, fresh (or 2 tsp. vanilla extract if you prefer)
- 125 ml soya milk (or any other vegan or non-vegan milk)
- Preheat your oven to 190°C.
- Remove the core from the avocado and mash it up.
- Mix in a small bowl the flour, salt, baking and cacao (or cocoa) powder.
- In a large bowl, mix the avocado with the sugar the eggs and the vanilla until it's well combined.
- Then gently add the dry ingredients to the bowl and add the milk.
- Disperse the dough evenly into your muffin pan, prepared with papers. Fill it in about 2/3 of the way. It should end up being around 10-12 muffins.
- Depending on the egg and the avocado it should bake around 20-30 minutes. Check with a toothpick occasionally if the dough is done.