Chocolate Chip Zucchini Muffins... nut free!

I ran 400m repeats on the local track this week with my mini-me... she ran two full laps! It is hard not to be motivated when this little thing is watching me. 

A surprising number of people in my life have tree nut allergies. Before I didn't really pay attention to it, but now that I am dating Rudy, who has an allergy, and some other people I work out with do too, I am forced to pay attention because I don't want to kill them! I don't know about you, but trying to find paleo baking recipes that don't use almond flour is tough because you can't just sub coconut flour (too dry) or tapioca (too chewy.) I was doing some research and found a blog that said that seed flour is a direct substitute for almond flour... problem is you can't buy it, you have to make it. So I set out to find raw sunflower seeds and see what this was all about. My mom found raw seeds in the bulk section of Whole Foods... way cheaper than almond flour! and then found it a dollar a pound cheaper at Trader Joes!

Making Seed Flour:

- Put the raw seeds in a high powered blender and blend... my words of caution would be to not blend too much or you will get sunbutter and to stop the blender and stir the flour once or twice to get the stuff from the bottom that is starting to stick together. For this recipe I used two heaping cups of raw seeds blended and it made enough flour for 80 mini muffins! (two batches) These little babies are coming with me to the competition tomorrow. :)

My mini muffin mountain

Chocolate Chip Zucchini Muffins 

(Printable Version)

(makes about 35-40 mini muffins)

- 1 1/2 Cups Seed Flour

- 1 tsp Baking Soda

- 1 tsp Baking Powder

- 1 Tbsp Cinnamon

- 1/2 tsp Salt

- 1 tsp Vanilla

- 2 Eggs, whisked

- 3 Tbsp Coconut Oil, melted

- 2 Tbsp Raw Honey

- 1 Rotten Banana, mashed (if you don't have this add another egg and a bit more honey)

- 1 Cup Shredded Zucchini, about 1 small 

- 1/4 Cup Mini Chocolate Chips (Enjoy Life Brand)

 Preheat over to 350 degrees. 

1. Whisk the first 5 ingredients together.

2. In a separate bowl, whisk the remaining ingredients besides the zucchini and chocolate chips. Stir into the dry ingredients.

3. Put the shredded zucchini in a paper towel and squeeze the water out. Fold it and the chocolate chips into the batter.

4. Grease a mini muffin pan and drop about a heaping teaspoon into each muffin hole (~2/3 full.) Bake 10-12 minutes. Store in the fridge.