Chai Spice Zucchini Muffins Recipe

An Original Recipe Brought to You
From the Farmhouse Kitchen at Root & Branch Farms

Ingredients:

• 2 teaspoons ground cardamom
• 1¼ teaspoons ground ginger
• ¼ teaspoon ground cloves
• ½ teaspoon finely ground black pepper
• 1½ teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1 cup oil
• 3 eggs (or vegan egg equivalent – I use Bob’s Red Mill egg replacer)
• 1 cup granulated sugar (I use organic raw cane sugar – I prefer the Florida Crystals brand which is available at most grocery stores)
• 1 cup brown sugar (I use organic Florida Crystals brand brown sugar)
• 2 cups grated zucchini (I leave the peel on the zucchini for added color and nutrition)
• 1 teaspoon baking powder (I use Trader Joe’s baking powder which is aluminum-free)
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons vanilla (I use Trader Joe’s Organic Alcohol-Free Pure Vanilla)
• 3½ cups organic all-purpose flour

Instructions:

1. 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.
2. Add the ground cardamom, ground ginger, ground cloves, finely ground black pepper, and ground cinnamon to a large mixing bowl.
3. Add the oil to the bowl, and stir thoroughly to combine with the spices. Allow to sit for 5 minutes. This is called “blooming” the spices in oil, and helps to bring out the flavors.
4. While the spices are blooming, grease the muffin cups in a muffin pan, or put paper liners into the muffin pan. 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.
5. Heat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
6. Once the 5 minutes are up for blooming the spices, add the eggs (or vegan egg equivalent), granulated sugar, and brown sugar to the bowl, and stir well.
7. Add the grated zucchini to the other ingredients in the bowl, and mix.
8. Add the baking powder, baking soda, salt, and vanilla to the bowl, and mix.
9. 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.
10. Fill the muffin cups almost all the way full (I recommend using a stainless-steel cookie scoop to fill the muffin cups with batter). 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.
11. Bake for 30 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean when testing the muffins. The muffins should be a golden brown in color.
12. Remove the muffins from the pan after 5 to 10 minutes. Then further cool and “rest” the muffins on a cooling rack for at least 1 to 2 hours. This resting time allows the spices to meld together, producing a richer, smoother flavor profile than when eaten right out of the oven. Enjoy plain or with butter!

Yields 2 dozen muffins.

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