Salted Caramel and Pecan Zucchini Muffins Recipe
An Original Recipe Brought to You
From the Farmhouse Kitchen at Root & Branch Farms
Ingredients:
- 3 eggs (or vegan egg equivalent)
- ½ cup granulated sugar (I use organic raw cane sugar – I prefer the Florida Crystals brand which is available at most grocery stores)
- ½ cup brown sugar (I use organic Florida Crystals brand brown sugar)
- 1 cup oil
- 2 cups grated zucchini (I leave the peel on the zucchini for added color and nutrition)
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon baking powder (I use Trader Joe’s baking powder which is aluminum-free)
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 2 teaspoons vanilla (I use Trader Joe’s Organic Alcohol-Free Pure Vanilla)
- 1¼ cups pecans, coarsely chopped
- 1¼ cups salted caramel chips (I recommend that you freeze them the day before to help them hold their shape when baking)
- 3½ cups organic all-purpose flour
Instructions:
- Coarsely chop the pecans, and set aside. (If using pre-chopped pecans, skip this step.)
- Rinse the zucchini and chop off the ends. Do not peel the zucchini. Using a course grater (a grater with the larger holes), grate 2 cups of zucchini. You should not squeeze out the zucchini shreds. You need all the moisture zucchini naturally has for this recipe. Set the grated zucchini aside.
- Heat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Grease bottoms of muffin cups in a muffin pan, or use paper liners. I definitely recommend using paper liners, as it makes washing / clean-up much easier and prevents the muffins from sticking to the pan. In particular, I recommend using grease-proof muffin liners if available.
- Add the eggs (or vegan egg equivalent), granulated sugar, brown sugar, and oil to a large mixing bowl, and stir well.
- Add the grated zucchini to the other ingredients in the bowl, and mix.
- Add the baking powder, baking soda, salt, and vanilla to the bowl, and mix.
- Add the pecans and the salted caramel chips to the bowl, and mix. I highly recommend using Trader Joe’s Caramel Sea Salt Baking Chips. These have no artificial flavors and no synthetic colors. The taste is delicious!
- Add the flour to the bowl, and mix the batter thoroughly to combine. Make sure there are no flour clumps at the bottom of the bowl. Try not to overmix the batter, because overmixing can make the muffins tough and dry.
- Fill the muffin cups almost all the way full (I recommend using a stainless-steel cookie scoop to fill the muffin cups with batter). Make sure that the salted caramel chips at the top are pushed down into the batter. The melt point of salted caramel chips is lower than semi-sweet chocolate chips, and therefore they can get gooey if they are part-way out of the batter at the top of the muffin. Pushing them back into the batter helps maintain their proper shape.
- Bake for 30 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean when testing the muffins. The muffins should be a golden brown in color. Note: This recipe yields two dozen muffins, so you will have to bake in batches unless you have multiple muffin pans. If you do use two separate muffin pans, I recommend baking them next to each other on the same rack in the oven. If you put one pan above the other on different racks, it might cause uneven baking due to oven air flow. If your oven bakes slightly unevenly as many ovens do, and if you are baking with two muffin pans in the oven at the same time, I recommend rotating the muffin pans part-way through baking (left to right and front to back) so that the muffins bake more evenly.
- Cool the muffins for at least 30 minutes. Enjoy them plain or with some butter!
Yields 2 dozen muffins.
Copyright Notice and Terms of Use
All recipes, text, and images on this website are the exclusive intellectual property of Root and Branch Farms LLC. All rights are reserved.
The recipes provided here are for your personal, non-commercial use and enjoyment only. You may print and use these recipes for your own kitchen.
However, you may not reproduce, distribute, or use these recipes for commercial purposes, including but not limited to:
- Re-publishing them online or in print
- Using them in a publication
- Selling them
If you are interested in using our recipes for any purpose other than personal use, please contact us at rootandbranchfarms@gmail.com to request written permission. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s owner is strictly prohibited.