Easter Muffins {With Chocolate Eggs}

While we try to eat Clean most of the time, special occasions are one of the times I'm a bit freer with the chocolate and these Easter muffins fall right under that banner! Rich, chocolatey muffins (still without the refined sugars though!) with a little 'nest' of Easter eggs on top. Hey, it's only once a year :)

Easter Muffins

Easter in our house is the time when we get together with family, have a big dinner, lots of treats and generally have a fun, busy weekend.

I've never been into the strictness of being militant with food and what the kids (and us!) eat and so I'm more than happy to bend the 'rules' sometimes.

That doesn't mean I'm suddenly going to switch to full on heavily processed again, oh no. It simply means that alongside the wholemeal and unbleached flours and unrefined sugars, I might well add a few chocolate mini eggs on top.

Ok, that's exactly what I've done here!

These chocolate muffins are cake-y and moist and full of flavor. It's really only the chocolate eggs on top that wouldn't normally be there, which is lucky as they're only available in the shops, staring longingly at me, at Easter anyway.

I use a high quality cocoa to flavor these and use boiling water to make a paste before adding it to the muffin batter. I find this gives a richer flavor and works the same as adding melted dark chocolate to the batter which I used to do pre- eating Clean.

You can add some chocolate chips into these if you like, I haven't because I don't think they really need it, but if you have a chocolate addict you might think about adding half a cup of chocolate chips to the mixture right before they go into the oven.

I often use these semi-sweet chocolate chips in baking and often I'll add them in to give a muffin or a cake some added texture but as I say, feel free to leave them out or add them in.

More Easter Posts

• Boiled egg bunny ears
• Fun Easter pranks for kids
• FREE printable bunny footprints
• Easter coloring pages
• Printable Easter signs

Topping

For the topping of these Easter muffins I've used a ganache. No, it's not especially Clean. I use an Organic milk chocolate to make it, so while it's not Clean as such, it's as good as this ganache is going to get!

When you make this topping, leave it to cool down and thicken before you put it on top of your muffins, if it's still hot or even warm from cooking, you won't be able to get a 'neat' look, if that's what you're after. And it's also easier to make the mini egg nest when the ganache is cooled, you can bury the eggs into it and they'll stay put.

Turn These Into An Easter Cake

Turn these Easter muffins into a cake! Yep, you can turn this into a cake easily bu cooking it in a round cake pan. This recipe will make enough for one half of a sandwich cake so double the recipe if you want to use the ganache as cake sandwich filling.

You could use half the ganache to sandwich the cake and the other half to top the cake and then add the mini eggs on top.

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Decoration

I think these mini eggs look the cutest on top of these muffins. However, these are of course totally optional and you don't need to add them at all.

You could add some non-edible Easter decorations to the cake, some baby chicks, or anything else Easter-y you fancy!

More Clean Eating Muffins

• Vanilla Muffins
• Fresh cherry muffins
• Apple and blackberry crumble muffins
• Mini cheese muffins
• Banana lentil muffins
• Pear and cinnamon muffins
• Healthy oatmeal cinnamon muffins

How To Make Easter Muffins

Ingredients

• Easter Muffins
• ½ Cup + 2 tbsp Wholemeal flour
• 1 tsp Baking powder
• ½ Cup Coconut sugar
• ½ Cup Butter Melted
• 2 Small Eggs
• 1 heaped tbsp Cocoa 100% Cocoa
• ¼ Cup Boiling water To make the cocoa paste
• Ganache
• ½ Cup Heavy cream
• ½ Cup Milk chocolate Broken up into small pieces
• Mini eggs As wanted!

Instructions

• Heat your oven to 190° and put muffin liners into a six hole muffin tin
• In a large mixing bowl add the eggs and coconut sugar and using electric beaters, beat the mixture until it's light and fluffy
• Boil the kettle and make up the cocoa paste in a small bowl by simply mixing the two together and put to one side
• Add the melted butter to the eggs and sugar and using a wooden spoon combine well
• Add the cocoa paste to the batter and combine. Then add the flour and the baking powder and mix in until just combined
• Divide the mixture between the muffin cases and bake for 12-15 minutes. When the muffins look risen and after at least 12 minutes, take them out and insert a sharp knife into the centre to make sure they're cooked. If they're not, pop them back in for another few minutes
• Allow to cool fully before adding the ganache
• To make the ganache, put the heavy cream and broken chocolate pieces into a small pan on the cooker top and on a very low heat allow the chocolate to melt into the cream, stirring it regularly. Make sure the heat is low so the ganache doesn't burn
• When the chocolate is fully melted into the cream take the pan off the heat and give the mixture a really good whisk. It should look shiny and smooth. Allow the ganache to cool in the pan before using it
• Once the ganache has cooled, top the muffins with it and add the mini eggs liberally :)

Easter Muffins Recipe