[Secret Ingredient] Double Chocolate Pumpkin Muffin Bites

A couple of days ago, I was on a mission to come up with a mini-something recipe that could serve as a baby snack or dessert.

An I’m-waiting-for-dinner-to-cook-and-need-to-eat-a-little-something-ASAP recipe.

Also an I-just-ate-dinner-and-am-not-really-hungry-but-want-a-bite-of-something-sweet snack.

Since pumpkin eats are constantly on my brain these days, I naturally incorporated some into the recipe – in more than one way. I think that including chocolate in a sweet recipe is always a good idea, so this recipe quickly became a combo of chocolate + pumpkin yumminess. And then there was the mini muffin tin I happened to see peering from my cabinet just waiting to be used, all of which resulted in these babies…

Then comes the *secret ingredient* part…

I wanted to omit use of any oil and make this recipe super healthy in general, but I still wanted them to be moist. Especially when incorporating protein powder like I did here, the recipe can get dry easily. I did some research online to see what people most frequently use in protein powder brownies/cakes/muffins, and I kept finding black beans to be the common denominator.

Now, I’m not really a fan of putting ingredients in things that don’t seem like they should be there, though I certainly have tried it.

Avocado in chocolate mousse? Get outta here! 

Tofu in homemade dressings, desserts, etc.? No thank you. Been there, tried that…it wound up in my garbage can. 

But I decided to give the black beans a go in my muffins. I figured I can’t knock it ’til I try it, right?

Besides using pure pumpkin in the muffin bites, I also decided to use some pumpkin cream cheese to keep the recipe nice and moist. Trader Joe’s pumpkin cream cheese = nom.

The recipe also included honey, cinnamon, cocoa powder and dark chocolate chips. When I combined everything in my food processor, I was still feeling skeptical about using black beans.

But once the batter was smooth, I was very happy with what I tasted. Friends, I wouldn’t lie to you – it did NOT taste like black beans. It just tasted like chocolate pumpkin goodness, and after I spooned the batter into my mini muffin cups, I ate as much batter out of the food processor as I could. I was like a little kid eating the remnants of boxed brownie mix with a wooden spoon after my mom put the brownie batter in the oven (I obviously did that EVERY TIME my mom made brownies growing up!).

When my hubby, whose not crazy about beans, tasted the muffins, he had no idea that there were black beans in them. Not only did he give the muffins a thumbs up at first, he keeps eating them and not questioning my vague description as them being “nice and healthy chocolate pumpkin bites.” Muwahaha.

I’ve been eating the muffin bites on their own as a few-bite mini snack, and also have been cutting them into a couple pieces and topping my yogurts with them. As I said in my last post, I pretty much top my yogurts with anything tasty that’s in my kitchen!

[Secret Ingredient] Double Chocolate Pumpkin Muffin Bites

Foodie Loves Fitness

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Prep Time 5 mins

Cook Time 20 mins

Total Time 25 mins

Servings 24

Calories 75 kcal

Ingredients

  

1x2x3x

• 1/2 cup pure pumpkin
• 1/2 cup pumpkin cream cheese or regular will work too
• 1-15 oz can black beans drained and rinsed
• 2 scoops chocolate protein powder I used Designer Whey
• 1/4 cup plus 2 TBSP honey
• 1/2 cup dark chocolate chips
• 2 TBSP cocoa powder
• 1 TSP cinnamon
• 1/2 TBSP baking powder
• 1/2 TSP salt

Instructions

 

• Preheat oven to 350 and line mini muffin tin with 24 muffin cups.
• Combine all ingredients except dark chocolate chips in a food processor. Blend until very smooth.
• Add chocolate chips, and pulse a bunch of times so that the chips are chopped up a bit but not completely blended.
• Evenly spoon batter into muffin cups.
• Bake until a toothpick comes out clean, about 20 minutes.
• Allow to cool before enjoying.

Nutrition

Serving: 1gCalories: 75kcalCarbohydrates: 12gProtein: 3gFat: 3gFiber: 2gSugar: 7g

Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!