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Most people are aware that yeast is the magical microorganism that makes bread rise, but to make a quick bread rise you have to use baking powder. The way that baking powder works is a very basic chemical reaction. Baking powder works through an acid-base reaction in the batter of your baked goods.
We all remember the vinegar and baking soda experiments from elementary school where a mixture of the two components causes a bubbly volcano reaction. Baking powder works on the same sort of premise. Baking powder contains both an acid and a base, along with some buffering agents to keep the two components from reacting until the baker is ready.
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Delicious Chocolate Zucchini Muffins Recipe
Bread is a remarkable thing, but many people don’t have the time to wait for a batch of yeasted bread dough to rise before baking. Baking bread with yeast will take a few hours, but by learning to bake quick breads you can have the fresh baked goodness in less time than you might have thought. This recipe for Chocolate Zucchini Muffins is a bread recipe that combines quick bread ease with chocolate deliciousness.
Video Version
Equipment
- Cupcake or Muffin Pan
- Box Grater or Food Processor
- Medium-Sized Bowl
- Wire whisk
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups Flour
- 1/4 cup Granulated Sugar
- 1/4 cup Brown Sugar
- 1/2 cup Unsweetened Cocoa Powder
- 1 teaspoon Baking Powder
- 1/2 teaspoon Baking Soda
- 1/2 teaspoon Salt
- 2 pcs Eggs
- 1/2 cup Cooking Oil
- 1/2 cup Milk
- 1 teaspoon Vanilla
- 1 pc Medium Zucchini
- 3/4 cup Dark Chocolate Chips
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
- Use cupcake wrappers to line the cups of a 12 to 15 serving cupcake or muffin pan.
- Using a box grater or a food processor, shred the zucchini. You do not need to peel the zucchini, or drain it.
- The extra water in the zucchini makes the muffins moist and delicious. To make cleaning up easier if you’re using a box grater, you can grate it onto a piece of waxed paper on your countertop.
- When you’re done grating, use the waxed paper to transfer it to your mixing bowl, and then you can just toss the waxed paper in the trash.
- Next, in a medium-sized bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and the sugars.
- In a separate bowl, combine the milk, eggs, cooking oil, and vanilla. Mix well.
- Quickly, stir the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. There is no need to over mix or whip the batter. Simply get all of the dry ingredients stirred together with the wet ingredients.
- Next, stir the shredded zucchini into the batter along with the chocolate chips. This will make a fairly thick batter that is kind of the texture of brownie batter.
- Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin pan and slide it into the center of the oven.
- Bake the muffins for 20 to 25 minutes, or until you touch the top of one of them and the muffin springs back.
- Remove the muffins from the oven and allow them to cool for about five minutes before removing them from the pan and placing them on a wire rack to cool.
- You can serve them warm, after allowing them to cool for about 20 minutes. Or you can wait until they are entirely cool to serve them.
- Store them in a tightly covered dish at room temperature for up to five days.
Notes
When you add liquid to the batter, the acid and the base mix together to create a chemical reaction. This reaction releases carbon dioxide bubbles which are trapped in the batter or dough. The bubbles make the baked item light and fluffy.
When making quick breads, you should remember a few things. First, do not beat out all of the lumps in the batter. A few lumps are perfectly fine in the batter, and over mixing can lead to tough bread. For a light, fluffy finished product, just stir until all the dry ingredients have been moistened with the wet ingredients. Additionally, have the oven preheated before you start mixing up the quick bread batter.
The leaveners in a quick bread begin to work as soon as the wet ingredients activate them, so a delay in getting the batter into the oven means that your bread won’t rise as high. Last, make sure that your baking powder and baking soda are fresh. Over time, the components in the baking powder and baking soda can become less effective. Check the expiration date on your ingredients to make sure that they’ll work the way that you want them to work.
Our recipe for Chocolate Zucchini Muffins uses zucchini, so if you are a gardener who is being overrun with this summer vegetable, this is a great recipe to have on hand. However, don’t worry that the muffins will taste too healthy. Most people won’t even notice that there is zucchini in this recipe. But, the addition of zucchini helps these muffins stay moist and delicious.
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