So who like muffins?  ME!!!!  and so do my kidos!  One morning last week I ask the kids if they wanted muffins for breakfast and Koa pipes up stating “I want Chocolate muffins!”  I’m not sure where he has ever had chocolate muffins much less heard about them… but obviously he has!  At first I said absolutely not, but then when I thought about it… it doesn’t necessarily have to be sweet, just chocolate color!  Hmmm… it started the wheels turning! I used a couple of different recipes and came up with this one!  It was such a huge hit that we made it a few times within a week or two!  They were so good and didn’t use very many eggs.  Since Aisling can’t have eggs I try hard not to make too many things that she can’t have.  It also gets expensive using half a dozen eggs for 12 muffins! So this recipe is version one!

Chocolate Muffins – #1 (Grain-free, Dairy-free, Sugar-free, Paleo)

Ingredients:
2.5 cups of almond meal, almond flour, or hazelnut flour (can be made by grinding crispy nuts in a coffee grinder)
3 large eggs
1/4 cup of honey
1/2 tsp. of baking powder
1/2 tsp. of sea salt
1 Tbs. of vanilla extract
½ cup walnuts
2-4 TBSP cocoa powder or cacao powder

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 300 degrees.
Prepare 12 muffin tins with liners or lightly grease with oil or butter.
Mix all ingredients until smooth.
Fold in the nuts.
Bake for 30-40 minutes.

Optional add-ins:

• I sprinkled about 5 of the Enjoy Life mini chocolate chips on top and that was all they needed!     

We thought we had come up with the BEST recipe and were totally satisfied!  They were firm and solid and dense unlike a lot of the paleo breads and we really liked that about this recipe. Only two of them and you are pretty full!  But… then we accidentally came across another great recipe this morning and we gave it a try!  Another success!  This one was almost better!  NO honey – the fruit gives it sweetness and NO EGGS!  Victory! 😉 And to top it all off!  I got 18 muffins out of this recipe!  The bananas were a little large, but they turned out great!  These were so super fantastic I didn’t want breakfast to end!  With a cup of coffee and my kidos enjoying breakfast too!  It was a little piece of heaven!

Chocolate Muffins #2
(Grain-free, Dairy-free, Sugar-free, Egg-free, Paleo)

Ingredients:

3 medium bananas
2 cups of almond flour
¼ cup of coconut oil
¾ cups of walnuts
2 teaspoons of baking soda
1 cup of raisins
1 tablespoon of vanilla
1 tablespoon of cinnamon
1-2 tsp cocoa powder or cacao powder

Instructions:
Combine ingredients
Pour batter into 18 greased muffin pans or liners.
Bake at 325 degrees for 25 minutes

So… what do YOU think?  Have you tried either of these?  Once you do let me know what you think or if you made any changes and how it worked out!  Can’t wait to hear!