Whole Grain Peanut Butter Dark Chocolate Muffins

UPDATED 2011-07-14

This recipe is inspired by the “Peanut Butter Bread” recipe found in Tate’s Bake Shop Cookbook: The Best Recipes from Southampton’s Favorite Bakery.

I altered the sugar quantity, added dark chocolate & sunflowers, and of course replaced the white flour with whole grains (whole wheat and barley flours).

Ingredients: UPDATED 2011-07-14

• 1-1/2 cups Whole Wheat flour
• 1/2 cup Barley flour (Optional – you can use all whole wheat, or even a little white flour)
• 2 tsp Baking Powder
• 1/2 tsp sea salt
• 1/2 cup Sucanat sugar
• 6 Tbsp dark chocolate chips 70% or more
• 2.25 oz chopped peanuts
• 1 cup milk
• 2 Tbsp Olive Oil (Optional) – with peanut butter, you probably don’t even need extra oil
• 1 large Egg
• 1 tsp Vanilla Extract
• 1 tsp Almond Extract (optional)
• 1/2 cup (128g) peanut butter – no salt/sugar added (smooth or chunky)
• 1 ripe medium banana (Optional)

Instructions

Makes 12 muffins

1. Preheat oven to 350° and line your muffin tin with papers (or oil/spray)
2. In bowl, whisk the flours, sucanat sugar, baking powder, and salt.
3. Mix in chocolate chips and chopped peanuts
4. In a large measuring cup, combine milk, oil, egg, vanilla, and almond extract.
5. Mix in the peanut butter, then the banana. I found a potato masher works well for this step.
6. Blend wet ingredients into the dry ingredients, stirring just until combined.
7. Divide into the 12 muffin cups
8. Bake for approximately 15 minutes until center springs back when pressed with a fingertip.
9. Once baked, remove muffins from tin, and cool completely on rack.

Extra Info

1. The muffins freeze beautifully! We were eating the first batch weeks later, and they were yummy!
2. Even after tweaking this recipe, they are still a tad on the dry side, but still very tasty. These muffins are not sweet at all!

Nutritional Data – UPDATED 2011-07-14

12 muffins – After tweaking the recipe, calories were reduced from 340 to 276. Still a little high in calories for a muffin, but they rise up high when baking and you feel like you’re eating a good portion. If the olive oil is left out, calories would be reduced to 256.

Please use this nutritional data as a guide; the info is not absolute, your results might vary considerably depending on the total weight of the finished dish.

Calories: 276
Fat: 14g
Saturated: 3g
Polyunsaturated: 3g
Monounsaturated: 6g
Cholesterol: 31mg
Sodium: 191mg
Potassium: 95mg
Carbs: 32g
Fiber: 4.7g
Sugar: 13g
Protein: 8.6g
Vit A: 1%
Vit C: 1%
Calcium: 11%
Iron: 11%

New batch of muffins!