Healthy Bittersweet Chocolate Quinoa Muffins
I get it. The title of this post is… a little strange. Chocolate Quinoa Muffins?? Oh yes, I put quinoa in a dessert. And it works!
These Healthy Bittersweet Chocolate Quinoa Muffins are super light and fluffy, like cupcakes, but hearty and filling (perfect for breakfast!), like muffins. They’re not overly sweet or heavy, so they’re the best thing to eat first thing in the morning along with a cup of coffee. It’s seriously hard to believe these chocolatey muffins are low calorie, low fat, sugar free, gluten free, AND vegan!
Back in high school, during my I’ll-eat-whatever-tastes-good-even-if-it’s-terrible-for-my-body years, I’d walk (more like run) to the cafeteria to buy a chocolate chip muffin before classes started. I’m not sure why I kept buying those muffins, though. They were always a bit dry and crumbly, despite being made with typical unhealthy baking ingredients like white flour, white sugar, and a ton of oil and butter. Well, now that I list off the ingredients, THAT’S exactly why I kept buying those muffins — all that sugar is addicting! *smacks self in forehead*
Well, now I know better. I refuse to spend $4 on a single muffin made with crap ingredients. Especially now that I’ve got these Chocolate Quinoa Muffins in my sights!
These Healthy Bittersweet Chocolate Quinoa Muffins are so fluffy, so springy, and so delicious.
It’s crazy that such healthy ingredients like whole grain quinoa flour and sorghum flour, omega 3-rich flaxseed, and dairy-free yogurt can make such a satisfying treat.
As you may have noticed from the title, these are Bittersweet Chocolate Quinoa Muffins. I’ll be the first to admit, I’m not a fan of bittersweet chocolate. I agree 100% with Ina Garten who always says on her show, Barefoot Contessa, that bittersweet chocolate is too bitter and semisweet chocolate is too sweet. Well, I don’t think anything is too sweet, so I guess I just agree with the first part 😉
As I was whipping up these muffins, I wasn’t sure what to expect. After putting the muffin tin in the oven to bake off, I immediately started pacing around the kitchen. How would they taste??
When the timer went off, I peeked through the oven door. They looked… perfect! I took the muffins out of the oven and watched them cool. Once they were cool enough to handle, I sunk my teeth into one of the muffins. To my surprise, they were pretty good. Definitely not your typical sugary baked good — these are bittersweet, sophisticated, hearty, and wholesome.
Still unsure if these were post-worthy, I wrapped them up for later. Sometimes with chocolatey baked goods, muffins, cupcakes, and even cookies, they need to rest overnight in order for the flavors to develop. I taste tested the muffins once again the next day, and they were WAY better! Not as bitter and definitely not as quinoa-y. One bite and I wanted more. Ended up eating three… 😉
This surprised me, because I have a major sweet tooth. I like my sweets SWEET. You know, the kind of sweet that will make your teeth twinge and stomach ache. So why did I like these muffins so much? I think it’s because they were just sweet enough where you wanted to grab another one. Kind of like eating potato chips, where each chip is just salty enough where you want to grab another few hundred.
Healthy Bittersweet Chocolate Quinoa Muffins
Ingredients
- 102g (¾ cup) Quinoa Flour
- 102g (¾ cup) Sweet White Sorghum Flour
- 27g (⅓ cup) Unsweetened Natural Cocoa Powder
- 13g (2 tbs) Ground Flaxseed
- 2 tsp Double-Acting Baking Powder
- ½ tsp Baking Soda
- ¼ tsp Salt
- 240g (1 rounded cup) Plain, Unsweetened Vegan Yogurt (I used So Delicious coconut)
- 1¼ cups Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk
- 1 tbs Vanilla Extract
- 1 tsp Liquid Stevia Extract
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and spray your cupcake tin with cooking spray (or use silicone muffin liners, these cupcakes will stick to paper liners).
- In a small bowl, whisk together the quinoa flour, sorghum flour, cocoa powder, flaxseed, baking powder, baking soda, instant coffee, and salt.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the yogurt, almond milk, vanilla extract, and stevia extracts. Whisk until completely smooth. Dump the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients and whisk until the batter is even.
- Scoop the batter into the cupcake tins and bake for ~17-18 minutes, or until surface of the cupcakes spring back when tapped. Let cool in the pan for ~1 hour, then transfer to a wire cooling rack to cool completely. Serve and enjoy! To store, place in a tightly sealed container in the fridge for up to 5 days.
Recipe Notes
Can you believe it? 90-calorie, low fat, fiber-rich, nutritionally balanced chocolate muffins!! Of all things…
Since these Chocolate Quinoa Muffins have the appearance of cupcakes, but are healthy and hearty like muffins, I topped some off with Chocolate Frosting. If you want a sweeter treat, you can add chocolate chips to the batter or frost them off like I did:
These don’t look healthy and sure don’t taste healthy, but they are!
Enjoy 🙂
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With love and good eats,
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– Jess
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Indulge − no strings attached!
STOPIT!
I can’t even handle your extreme level of awesome.
These cupcakes….just….whoa.
I usually don’t like cupcakes because they’re too sweet, but these look perfect! The nutrition facts are amazing too. I never would have guessed that label belonged to a chocolate cupcake.
I love the look of your blog. What template are you using?
Cute cupcakes.. Im gonna try ’em!
You know that show, “Sweet Genius” on the Food Network?
Yeah…you are THE Sweet Genius! 😉
Thanks for such a tasty looking (and I’m sure delicious – I will find out tomorrow) recipe!
-Sophie
Sophie, you are SO nice! I hope you like the cupcakes 🙂
Oh wow, an easy vegan & gf recipe for delicious (and healthy!) cupcakes :)) I may whip up some Vanilla Sun Warrior frosting… thanks for sharing!
tasty and healthy, it just can’t be better.I’ve featured this recipe on my blog, hoping that you don’t mind, but if you do, please contact me and I’ll remove it. All the best.
I made these for me and my boyfriend and we loved them! They were so chocolatey and rich. I added some semi sweet mini chocolate chips because they were lying around and I felt like it and obviously it was delicious (can’t ever go wrong with more chocolate) but on their own these cupcakes were awesome. This was my first of your recipes and I can’t wait to try more, I’m thinkin’ poptarts next… or oreos.. hmmm (decisions, decisions)
I’m so glad you liked the cupcakes Anne! The chocolate chips sound like a great addition, I’m definitely adding those next time I bake these. I hope you like the next recipe you try 😀
-Jess
I just finished making these for the first time, and the frosting was amazing! The only problem I had was that there’s a quinoa after taste from the cupcakes… I followed the recipe, but maybe I did something wrong… sorry… 🙁
or maybe that’s how they’re supposed to taste because they’re bitter sweet?
Quinoa flour will always impose a bitter quinoa flavor, but it usually gets masked by stronger flavors such as chocolate, banana, cinnamon, etc. The cupcakes are meant to be bittersweet, so if you are used to milk chocolate or white chocolate, you might be tasting the bitterness from the bittersweet chocolate as well as the quinoa. If the cupcakes have too much of a strong flavor for you, you can try doubling the frosting or adding some chocolate chips 🙂
Yum!
These looks so good, like wow!
I can’t wait to try. xx
Izzy
I actually like to put whole quinoa in muffins! Cooked first, of course. The muffins I made using cooked quinoa were the fluffiest and softest gluten free ones ever. And, they were made in a blender so super easy 🙂 I might try it with your recipe instead of quinoa flour and see how it goes! These sound delicious
These look really good. I love quinoa and this is a nice way to use it! I used it at my coffee shop/cafe a lot because of its quick easy cooking quality. These look so light and fluffy!
why are you frontdating old recipes?
I’m not front dating for the sake of it, all of the recipes that I’m “reposting” have been updated. I’ve retested, improved, and rephotograohed everything. I spent maaaany hours improving my older recipes for you and my other readers, so I really want to share it again! 🙂
I love cupcakes but can’t take much because its little bit sweet. I love this chocolate quinoa and its look perfect! The nutrition facts are amazing too. I will try this next weekend.
Xo
OMG only 15g of carbs for one! Now that’s dangerous for myself LOL. I will definitely have to try to make these this weekend 🙂
Step 2 of the recipe directions indicate the addition of instant coffee, but this is not included in the list of ingredients. Is it supposed to be and how much coffee should be added? I added 1 tsp and it was fine, but next time, I’m definitely adding chocolate chips as others have suggested for a more chocolatey taste.