My Pinterest boards that include food are growing each day - so I didn't have a hard time finding something to bake. Yet Chuck and I really try our best to eat as healthy as we can. Now we're not crazy healthy- we have a tasty Starbucks way too many times a week and I just had to have some Dairy Queen ice cream to put the oh so yummy caramel sauce on last night (boy was that a great idea...mmmm....more left for tonight). But we do try really hard to make food that is best for us and for my aggravating stomach issues. We cut out a lot of processed food and try to limit fructose. Both of these things I've found tend to bother me somewhat and I just don't feel well after eating a lot of it. We've totally cut out gluten...and unfortunately I seem to be quite sensitive to even a little bit of it - seemingly safe fruit that was probably cross-contaminated on a cutting board or by someone's hands putting in on the platter can even make for a uncomfortable day for me. We seem to find a good balance of healthy sprinkled with enough sweet treats to make life great! Today for instance - I know that tonight I want to have some more of the ice cream with caramel...so I make sure that the rest of the food today will be much better for me and my tummy than that treat. Being at home, inside on a rainy day means the munchies will be calling. So this morning I made up a batch of Kale chips. These crispy, salty leaves are perfect to munch on and not feel guilty about calories or feel upset from a processed snack like potato chips. As of 3pm Sara and I have finished the whole pan of them! Lots of nutrients and little calories.
So as I looked for an interesting recipe on one of my Pinterest boards to make, I knew I would try one of the more healthy ones. I decided to try a chocolate muffin recipe that I pinned a while back. Now I know - Chocolate muffins don't sound very healthy but the ingredients intrigued me so I gave it a try.
Here's the photo from the original pin - and the link --> Chocolate muffins
I followed the recipe as it was written with the exception of the sweetener. Chuck and I do not eat any artificial sweeteners and I really don't like Stevia. We try to stay away from too much fructose so when baking something for us we use glucose so I added about 1 1/4 cups of glucose (also called dextrose) instead of the sweetener the recipe called for. I also didn't use as many chocolate chips as they did. I used just a few of our favorite Ghirardelli dark chocolate chips put on the top a few minutes before they were done.
Mine didn't come out as pretty as the ones pictured above. I didn't fill the papers enough so mine are smaller. But they came out very yummy. Chuck had two already as soon as he came home. He scraped the "chocolate paper" pretty clean so that's a Thumbs Up from him!
I couldn't wait for it to cool down before trying - so this one was ooey gooey good.
