And today’s muffins are totally acceptable for dessert. Double chocolate, anyone?
I made these muffins twice last weekend. I developed the recipe as I went. Sometimes the best of recipes just come as I’m mixing the whole wheat flour and baking soda together. Other times I have recipe fails, other times I lay in bed and scribble down ideas as I’m falling asleep. All Day I Think About Recipes.
Today’s chocolate muffins are very easy to make. Start with some of your wet ingredients: unsweetened applesauce, some sugar, and honey. Applesauce takes the place of butter and oil in this recipe. For a traditional chocolate muffin recipe, you’ll love these double chocolate muffins.
Sometimes baked goods without the presence of fat can be dry and crumbly. I can’t stress enough that these are NOT anything like that. There is only 1/2 cup of granulated sugar in the whole recipe yielding 12 large muffins. 1/2 cup of sweetener is not enough, so I use 1/4 cup of honey as well. A few more wet ingredients are egg whites, greek yogurt, and vanilla extract. Instead of using 1 egg, I use two egg whites.
The dry ingredients are simple: all-purpose flour, whole wheat flour, unsweetened cocoa powder, and your leavening agents. You will use 1/2 cup of both flours and the cocoa powder, which I loved. It’s so easy to remember! You can sift the dry ingredients together, which I did, but this step is not necessary. Sifting gets rid of any cocoa powder lumps, making it easy to mix with the other ingredients in the recipe.
The last thing you’ll add? Chocolate chips of course! I used mini chocolate chips, but regular size work too.
Today’s muffins are the perfect breakfast recipe. No mixer required, taking 10 minutes to prepare the batter, and are made with so many easy ingredients: greek yogurt and applesauce keep the muffins moist and soft, they are sweetened with only a little sugar and honey, and include whole wheat flour. Not bad for a chocolate treat!
Skinny Double Chocolate Chip Muffins
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 18 minutes
- Total Time: 40 minutes
- Yield: 12 muffins
- Category: Muffins
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Description
You won’t realize these double chocolate muffins are lightened-up and low fat!
Ingredients
- 3/4 cup (133g) unsweetened applesauce
- 1/2 cup (100g) granulated sugar
- 1/4 cup (85g) honey
- 2 large egg whites (or 1 large egg)
- 3/4 cup (183g) vanilla Greek yogurt*
- 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup (63g) all-purpose flour (spoon & leveled)
- 1/2 cup (64g) whole wheat flour (spoon & leveled)
- 1/2 cup (42g) natural unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 cup (90g) mini chocolate chips, plus a few more for sprinkling on top
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425°F (218°C). Spray 12-count muffin pan with nonstick spray. Do not use liners.
- In a large bowl, whisk the applesauce, sugar, honey, egg whites, greek yogurt, and vanilla extract until smooth.
- Sift* the flours, cocoa powder, salt, baking soda, and baking powder together. Slowly stir in the wet ingredients, being careful not to overmix. Get any dry pockets of flour out. Fold in the mini chocolate chips. The batter will be a little chunky.
- Divide the batter evenly among the muffin cups – fill them all the way to the top. Bake for 5 minutes at 425°F (218°C) then, keeping the muffins in the oven, reduce the oven temperature to 375°F (191°C). Bake for an additional 13 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
- Allow the muffins to cool for 10 minutes in the muffin pan, then transfer to a wire rack to cool until ready to eat.
Notes
- Make Ahead & Freezing Instructions: Muffins stay soft, fresh, and moist at room temperature or in the refrigerator for up to 5 days. Muffins freeze well for up to 2-3 months. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator and heat up (if desired) before enjoying.
- Yogurt: You can also use regular yogurt– plain or vanilla.
- Sifting: Sifting the dry ingredients is optional, but recommended to rid any cocoa powder lumps.
- Tall Muffin Tops: Why the initial high temperature? The hot burst of air will spring up the top of the muffin quickly, then the inside of the muffin can bake for the remainder of the time. This helps the muffins rise nice and tall.
- Nutrition: According to SparkRecipes, these muffins have 165 calories, 3g fat, and 34g carbs each.
Keywords: skinny chocolate muffins
Delicious! I wanted to make them non dairy, so I subbed out the Greek yogurt for “buttermilk”- almond milk with a bit of lemon juice-and they’re light, fluffy, and perfect. Thank you!
★★★★★
These are delicious! I replaced the yogurt with almond buttermilk & used maple syrup instead of the honey and regular chocolate chips. They turned out lite & could be cupcakes!
★★★★★
I was nervous about making these because my family can always tell when I’ve made something ‘healthy’, but these were a massive hit! I did use only all-purpose flour because I can’t eat whole wheat, and I added milk chocolate chips. I used a silicon cupcake tray to bake too so no baking spray needed.
★★★★★
Fabulous! Off to make the Skinny chocolate and banana ones now! Mardie UK.
★★★★★
I just made them and they are AMAZING. The texture is so soft and fudgy almost like eating a brownie! Thank you very much for sharing these. This is the second recipe now I’ve tried from this site and they’ve both been fantastic. thanks Sally!
★★★★★
Taste great. I subbed yogurt with sour cream (thats all I had), and I used half of sugar called for. It stuck to the cupcake pan even with PAM spray so I don’t understand why the recipe asks for “no liners”. I will definitely use liners next time.
★★★★★
Best. Muffins. Ever! I’ve made these twice in the past two weeks and LOVED them; they taste amazing, so rich and chocolatey that no one would ever guess they were on the healthier side. I made a few adjustments to the recipe, using the same method both times:
(1) I used homemade applesauce (just water and apples cooked down and pureed), and replaced a part of the applesauce with vegetable oil
(2) I replaced half the yogurt with buttermilk; I think it makes the texture a bit lighter, which is wonderful, but I’m going to try it with all yogurt next time just to compare
(3) I replaced the sugar with coconut sugar
(4) I always 1.5x the recipe to get fifteen muffins, and I use one whole egg + one egg white
These muffins are so, so, SO good, and I can’t see myself ever using a different chocolate muffin recipe–if I can skim off a couple carbs and calories in my muffins, I can reserve them for other desserts (coooooooooookies 🙂 ). Skipping the chocolate chips would probably make the even healthier, but that’s never gonna happen…the melty pockets of chocolate chips after you microwave a muffin for ten seconds is to die for!
Can I omit the honey?
That should be ok, or replace with maple syrup!
Woke up tryingnto find something to do with my bananas. I want to somehow combine this recipe with the sweet one. Really just trying to figure out substitutes. Can I use the appplesauce and sugar instead of the agave (that I don’t have)? Do I need the honey? Same portions? Without the chips, does it make it taste different?
Hi Natasha! I recommend following our whole wheat double chocolate banana muffins recipe. Since you are trying to combine this recipe with that one– and I hope I’m understanding the ingredients you’d like to use– you can use 1/3 cup of regular sugar or honey in that recipe instead of agave. You can leave out the chocolate chips. The muffins will taste the same, but they won’t have the extra chocolate kick or the extra texture in each bite.
Thank you sally, for posting such amazing recipes which never fail me. I’ve tried numerous recipes from your website and not one has failed me! I do cut the sugar by 10-20% occasionally with success.
Just want to let you know that you’re inspiring and your recipes have brought much joy to me and those whom i share my bakes with!
My kids love these so I’ve made them a lot. I always weigh the ingredients and noticed a difference in the weight of the applesauce. 3/4 cup is around 189 grams so is it supposed to be 133 grams or 3/4 cup?
★★★★
I use 3/4 cup of applesauce = 135g.
My now 6 year old requested chocolate muffins (instead of cupcakes) for her birthday! So we made these! Our son has celiac, so we replaced the flour with Bob’s Red Mill 1 to 1 Gluten Free Flour and they were perfect! Also only had sweetened applesauce, so I cut the sugar in half. Everyone loved them and the teenage girls across the street said they were better than brownies!
i made a bunch of tweaks and these still came out amazing. my applesauce was moldy so i replaced it with pumpkin puree, and used a keto sugar substitute for the sugar and honey, plus i used dannon greek yogurt which is really low in calories – they were 99 calories each with only 26 carbs, 3 grams of sugar, 3 grams of fat
★★★★★
These were excellent but stuck to the pan despite cooking spray and had to be pried out with a spoon. Will use liners next time!