What’s the difference between a cupcake and a muffin? This issue caused a bit of confusion while I was developing this recipe. Many of the sources that I came across wrote about similar recipes, some calling them cupcakes instead of muffins. So how did I make the final decision?
Here are the important points I considered when naming this recipe:
- Would you eat it for breakfast? I’d definitely eat these for breakfast. Then again, I might eat a cupcake for breakfast every once in a while.
- Ratio of fat to sugar.The fat in this recipe comes from the avocado and olive oil. These are not the worst sources of fat out there. The sugar comes from pure maple syrup, which I consider a “good” sugar. This recipe contains slightly more sugar than I would normally use in a muffin recipe, but since it’s an unrefined sugar I’ll be more forgiving. In my opinion, we’d need to use butter and refined sugar to make a cupcake.
- Does it have frosting? No. Although I have seen some muffins with a glaze, I hardly ever see cupcakes without frosting.
- Method of preparation. Cupcake preparation generally involves creaming the fat and sugar, then mixing all of the ingredients well. Muffin preparation involves mixing dry and wet ingredients separately, then stirring together just until they are combined. This recipe follows the muffin preparation method.
And the muffin label won! With a not-too-sweet chocolate flavor and an incredibly moist crumb, these muffins are perfect for breakfast or snack. And maybe even dessert.
Vegan Chocolate Avocado Muffins
Adapted from Vegetarian Times
Yield: 12 muffins
1 1/2 cups white whole wheat flour
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 medium-sized ripe avocado, pitted and peeled
3/4 cup pure maple syrup
3/4 cup rice milk
1/3 cup olive oil
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
Preheat the oven to 350°. Grease muffin tin and set aside.
In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
Puree the avocado in a food processor, or mash it by hand. Combine the avocado with the maple syrup, rice milk, olive oil, and vanilla extract, in a food processor or by hand with a whisk. Add the avocado mixture to the dry ingredients, whisking until combined.
Divide the batter between the muffin cups, and bake for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with just a few crumbs. Cool the muffins in the pan, on a cooling rack, for at least 10 minutes before removing them from the pan to cool completely. These muffins are super moist and may break if you remove them from the pan while they are still hot.
Would I eat this? Heck, yeah! The colors are so neat!
Excellent categorization. I have made avocado pound cake before, and I loved it…so I’m sure this chocolate muffin variation would be just as good (if not better!)
Excellent recipe! You know for me it matters not what or when one would eat their chocolate–I take mine all day, every day! These look like perfect little parcels of Yum!
The chocolate muffins sound great, I like that they are not too sweet and the addition of avocado is very healthy.
How could anybody refuse one of these for breakfast?
Good thinking in setting up a decision matrix for settling on a name for the recipe.
Muffin! I woke up with muffin head this morning (hair problems-smile). Jeanne, this is like the perfect recipe for someone who wants something healthful yet satisfying. Nice! In fact, the only real complaint I can see coming from any area of the health foodie realm is from those gluten free elves! So I’ll look forward to your gluten free version of this (smile). Gosh, that’s putting a lot of pressure on you. Maybe I’ll try to do it and link to you;)!
Wow, that IS a lot of pressure! I’ve only tried one gluten free recipe so I’m a little out of my league on that one. If the recipe is gluten free I can follow it, but I have no experience converting recipes that have gluten. I would definitely love to learn more about baking gluten free. Please do let me know if you figure out how to convert this recipe!
That’s an easy question to answer. You eat muffins for breakfast, you eat cupcakes for dessert. Next question, please!
Love this post and recipe!
I think there should be a difference in how cupcakes and muffins are made. but who cares if both are equally delicious..
I’ve never used avocado in a dessert but if a chocolate muffin recipe doesn’t inspire you to branch out, what will? I’m going to be all over these muffins this weekend
I have seven rock hard avocados on my counter. I hope they hurry up and ripen because these muffins look soooooo good!!
I LOVE love LOVE these muffins….since discovering them i have eaten 4 dozen! What i want to know is the calorie count!
Well, I’m a firm believer in the fact that anything with a significant chocolate content is free of calories
! But on a serious note, Vegetarian Times lists the calorie content at 287 per muffin, but their version includes a glaze on top. I’m not sure what proportion of those calories are in the glaze, but these have got to have fewer calories than that!
These are the BEST muffins I have ever had! So healthy! I worked it out to be only 3 weight watchers points! I send them with my kids to school for their morning snack….sugar free…avocado….what more could you ask for? ! Yummmmm!!!! Thank you sooooo much!
Hi, I tried making this only used a bread pan (since I need new muffin tin). I used coconut milk instead of the rice milk. When I mixed it together, it appeared WAY too dry for a bread batter, so I added more milk until it seemed to be the right consistency. I baked it for about 50 min and it was still extremely gooey in the middle, so I kept baking it in 10 min intervals for another 30 min. The inside never was done. I took it out and thought maybe it would continue cooking if I left it in the pan covered in foil. Then it completely fell and the middle was still batter. Wondering what I need to do differently? Thanks!
Hi Dyann – it sounds like you may have added too much milk. If the wet/dry ingredient proportion is incorrect, it can cause the bread to fall. The batter should be pretty thick for this recipe. If you do try it again, please let me know how it works out!
[...] things… Let’s talk about cupcakes, because cupcakes are special. My friend Jeanne made Avocado muffins the other day and she set forth her rules about why they were named muffins instead …. I like her reasoning but want to add my spin to [...]
[...] Chocolate Avocado Muffin [...]
[...] buat mengolah sebagian alpukat itu jadi cake. setelah browsing sana sini, pilihan jatuh pada resep ini. rasanya memang ga sama dengan bolu alpukat masa kecil saya dulu. tapi dengan mempertimbangkan diet [...]