Beet chocolate muffins

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After seeing the film Ingredients we decided to finally sign up with a CSA and found one that goes through the winter.  Our first CSA box contained:

  • Unsalted Butter, Noris Dairy
  • Eggs, Moonshine Farm
  • Bread, Flour Garden Baking Company
  • Cremini & Portabella Mushroom
  • HoneyCrisp Apples
  • Red Bartlett Pears
  • Yellowstone and Orange Carrots
  • Zephyr Squash
  • Fennel
  • Red Beets n’ Greens
  • Garlic
  • Lacianoto Kale

We already had some beets that I’d roasted earlier in the week so I was thinking through the list of things I could make with two bunches of beets. I mean, we like them but what to do with them. That was the question.

At the same time, I was having the hankering for cookies. The problem with cookies is that we’ll eat them. But I remembered this outstanding chocolate beet cake I’d had when we’d done the Iron Chef Beet Battle.  I went looking for a recipe and they were all loaded with sugar.

And then I found a beet cookie recipe.  Digging through the internet, I found several more, most of which had almost no sugar.  I figured, what the heck.

The recipe I used was… unbalanced in the batter form.  Impossibly lurid pink, which was pretty cool, but had a strong flour and vegetal taste in the batter.  So I looked at some other recipes and modified this one before baking. The “cookies” were tasty but the texture was bizarrely spongy. More like a muffin than a cookie.

So this morning I baked the rest in muffin tins.  As muffins, the texture is very moist but I’ll have to play with the baking time and temperature to wind up with something that’s truly nice.  So… good flavor here, texture isn’t quite there yet.

  • Beet chocolate muffins3 Beets (About 2 cups)
  • 1 cup flour
  • 1 cup oatmeal
  • 2 1/2 cups yogurt
  • 1/2 cup Cocoa powder
  • 3 Tablespoons Honey
  • 1/2 Tablespoon Vanilla
  • 1 Teaspoon Cinnamon
  • 1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 teaspoon lemon juice
  • 3/4 cup chocolate chips
  • 1/2 cup walnuts

Roast and peel and slice the beet. Puree with yogurt. Mix all ingredients together and refrigerate for 1 hour.  Grease muffin tins and fill with batter.

Bake in 375 degree oven for half an hour.

This time I did them for 20 minutes at 400 degrees, like my usual muffin recipe, and had to stick them back in for another ten minutes.  They got too brown on the outside, so I suspect that next time I need to lower the temperature slightly and lengthen the baking time to help them dry out a little. Really, gorgeously moist inside.

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13 thoughts on “Beet chocolate muffins”

  1. Anne KG Murphy

    I’ve just started cooking with Kale this year; having a farmer’s market ever saturday across teh street from my house has influenced me. 🙂

    Lately one of my favorite breakfasts has become to saute some onions, zuchini and diced tomato, with some italian seasonings and optionally some sausage (this morning I had turkey sausage), throw some kale in right at the end to wilt, and plate it with a fried egg on top.

    I can prep all of that in a single iron skillet, which is nice too. 🙂

    1. Mary Robinette Kowal

      Oh, that sounds very tasty. I use kale in mixed sauteed greens or soups. Do you fry the egg after everything else, or at the same time in the side of the pan?

      I want a cast iron skillet, but haven’t gotten around to getting one yet. There’s some specific manufacturer that Rob likes and I can’t remember who it is now. Involves a W I think…

      1. Anne KG Murphy

        I start the sausage cooking, then when that’s mostly done, I saute the onions, moving them to the middle of the skillet with the sausage to the side. Then add the zuchinni and tomatoes and seasonings, cook that until the zuchini is just about done, then move that to the side and use about a third of the pan (including 1/3 of the edge along the downhill side. There’s always a downhill on a gas stove, and that’s where the egg wants to go) to fry the egg. I usually fry an egg over easy, so I crack it into the pan, then put the torn-up kale on the veggies and toss them a bit to get oil and heat on the kale, and flip the egg over. You can put the other food on the plate while the egg is finishing frying, and then you’ve fixed a whole nice meal in one pan in about 15 minutes.

      2. Anne KG Murphy

        btw, I bought most of my cast iron skillets on E-Bay, pre-seasoned. They are all vintage Erie/Griswold. Not as expensive as you might think (just avoid ones that mention rust in the description). I have a #7, #9 and a #10, plus a very small skillet for mushrooms or single omlettes.

        I highly recommend getting a self-basting lid if you get a cast iron skillet, which makes it possible to cook all kind of things you might want to steam or braise. It’s so simple to cook braise chicken, I just put some water in the skillet, add chicken breasts, put the lid on, and go do something else for 25 minutes. Optionally I turn them over halfway through. Simplicity itself and very moist chicken.

        Plus then you can put the lid on and put the whole thing in the oven as a dutch oven, too.

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