Recipe of the Week: Triple Chocolate Chunk Muffins

As you may have noticed, we LOVE muffins. Especially healthy ones! And well, I also happen to love chocolate, so what could be better than a healthy chocolate muffin??? A GF, SF triple chocolate muffin that you make in your blender, that's what!

Triple Chocolate Chunk Muffins

1 3/4 c Oats
3 egg whites
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt
1 1/2 tbsp. vinegar
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1 cup hot water
1 cup sugar substitute (I used zsweet, but would probably recommend 1/4 c stevia instead)
1/2 cup chocolate chips
Preheat to 350. Blend all ingredients except chocolate chips in blender until smooth.   Stir in 1/2 of the chocolate chips and scoop mixture into muffin tin or use foil liners (I did not and my muffins stuck to my liners).
Bake for 10 minutes, remove and add remaining chocolate chips to tops of muffins.  Bake for additional 5 minutes.



These muffins tasted AMAZING! However, my batter was really watery (not sure if I measured wrong somewhere?) So in turn they needed to be in the oven for close to 20 minutes and they didn't get nice and fluffy like the picture I saw on Pinterest, and my chocolate chips "sank" to the bottom of the muffins! Zsweet also tends to have the laxative effect is isn't the best sugar substitute to use! But they still tasted good and were nice and moist! Might have to try them again with a few modifications to get a fluffier muffin!

Candy Cane Science

Still have candy canes laying around the house? We had some how accumulated a ton of candy canes over the holidays. So when I found this candy cane pin on Pinterest, I thought it would be perfect!

It's a pretty basic "experiment" that was great for a 3 year old.

We filled our bowls with ice water, warm water, hot water, and vinegar. Made some predictions about what would happen to the candy canes in each bowl, then dropped them in. Nothing to fancy happened obviously, but the water changed color, the candy canes "melted" in the hot water, and "froze" in the ice water.

Then, we added some baking soda to the bowls and talked about the "bubbles" we saw in the vinegar, and why not the other bowls.

Then I let her stir/play with everything for a little, eat a candy cane, and she was happy (and hopefully learned a little science too :) )

Found this idea and a few other candy cane ideas at www.teachmama.com