Zucchini Bread Muffins

It's almost fall! And that means it's almost my favorite time of the year for baking. I had a couple zucchinis laying on my kitchen counter from my garden this morning with no plan for them. So I decided to shred up the biggest one and make zucchini bread. Only thing is, I don't have a go-to zucchini bread recipe so I hopped online and started searching. What I found was that a lot of the recipes had a ton of sugar. So after reading several different ones, I decided to just take from those recipes what I liked and make up my own :) There is some sugar in my recipe but it is not a whole lot. The rest of the sweetness comes from banana and monk fruit sweetener. Monk fruit is native to southern China and has been used for centuries in Eastern medicine as a cold remedy and digestive aid. It is also 150-200 times sweeter than sugar. Honestly, because of the sweetness of the monk fruit, I could probably use less sugar next time! So why use monk fruit rather than just regular sugar? Because it does not raise your blood sugar levels and it is lower in carbohydrates. So if that matters to you, I suggest trying monk fruit. I found a pretty decent size bag at Costco, but you can also purchase it on Amazon here. The one I've linked is the same brand I used, however, the bag from Costco was just under 2 pounds while the bag on Amazon is a 3 pound bag. I can't remember how much I paid for it at Costco, though.

Anyway, let's get to the recipe!

Zucchini Bread Muffins

Makes about 12-14 muffins

Ingredients:

1/2 Cup Monk Fruit Sweetener

1/3 Cup Brown Sugar

1 Ripe Banana, Mashed

1 Egg

1/4 Cup Coconut Oil, Melted

1/2 Tablespoon Vanilla

1 1/2 Cups All Purpose Flour

1 Teaspoon Baking Soda

1/2 Teaspoon Baking Powder

1/2 Teaspoon Salt

1 Teaspoon Cinnamon

1 Teaspoon Nutmeg

1/2 Teaspoon Cloves

1 Heaping Cup Zucchini, Shredded

Instructions:

1. Mix sweetener, sugar, banana, egg, oil, and vanilla until smooth.

2. In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking soda, baking, powder, salt, and spices.

3. Slowly add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and mix well. Your batter will probably be really thick, but that's ok! The water from the zucchini will help loosen it up.

4. Fold in zucchini.

5. Bake for 18-21 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.

***Options: You can add walnuts or any other nuts that you'd like. Just fold them in with the zucchini. I skipped this because we have a tree nut allergy in our house.

***To make this vegan, sub out the egg for 1 cup applesauce. (This is what I would have normally done, but we were out of applesauce and I didn't realize it until I had already started the recipe!)