Queen of Substitution or Reformation

When you live 55 miles from the nearest grocery store, you learn early how to make substitutions. I have a wonderful zucchini chocolate cake that I enjoy making and since my dad gave me a baseball bat sized zuke, I thought it was time to turn it into something delicious. I saw Deb's chocolate zucchini muffins at Homespun Living that I wanted to try too so what I did was a combo of my recipe and hers.

Deb's recipe called for 70% dark chocolate, mine called for baking cocoa, so I used half semi-sweet chocolate chips and half baking cocoa as a substitution.

My recipe called for buttermilk, I didn't have that so I made my own by adding a tablespoon of vinegar to a cup of whole milk. I let it sit a few minutes until it curdled the milk. Perfect!

Deb's recipe called for dried cherries, but I didn't have those so I subbed craisins. I know that my men don't always like the things I do, so I made the muffin dough plain, poured it into the tins and then individually added the craisins to a few muffins, walnuts into a few more, and left some plain. After these were baked off, what a delicious reward we all enjoyed! I absolutely loved the craisin muffins, Hubs loved the nutty ones, and the boys ate any and all of the others. I'm sorry, but there's no picture.

Here's the reformed recipe I came up with by combining Deb's and my recipe.
It's worthy of a do-again.

Chocolate Zucchini Muffins Reformed

1 1/2 c. sugar

3 eggs

1 c. oil

6 oz. semi-sweet chocolate chips

1/2 c. baking cocoa

1 c. buttermilk

3 t. vanilla

2 c. grated zucchini

1 t. salt

1 t. soda

1/2 t. baking powder

2 1/2 c. flour

nuts or craisins or dried cherries (opt)

In a bowl, mix eggs and sugar until light and fluffy.

Pour oil into a small bowl, add chocolate chips and cocoa and heat in microwave until chocolate is just melted. Stir well. Add this to the eggs/sugar mixture. Add buttermilk, zucchini, and vanilla and mix. Lastly, add all the dry ingredients and mix. Pour into prepared muffin tins, add nuts or dried fruit to individual muffins if desired.

Bake in 350* oven for 15 min. or until desired doneness.Makes about 2 1/2 dozen muffins.

Picture: "Baking" by Sharon Pederson

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