Are you someone who loves dessert for breakfast? If so, this is the perfect recipe for you! These muffins taste sinful, but they‘re secretly plant-based, gluten free, and healthy. The caramel is made from dates and the muffins are sweetened with maple syrup, making these refined sugar free. Want a sweet treat for breakfast? Make these amazing muffins!
Meal Prep Friendly!
Another perk of these muffins? They‘re meal prep friendly! If you‘re making them for just yourself, keep the recipe as is and you can have two muffins per day. If you‘re making them for more than yourself, double or triple the recipe depending on how many people they are for. Perfect to make on a Sunday, then, eat all week long.
What Do You Need to Make This Recipe?
The equipment for this recipe is simple! You‘ll need a blender or food processor to make the date caramel and an oven to bake the muffins. Additionally, you‘ll need a 12-cup muffin pan. Finally, not required but helpful, silicone muffin liners (as pictured above). I love the ones I have. They‘re from amazon (link here if you‘re interested). I prefer to use the silicone liners because there‘s no sticky messiness when trying to remove them from the pan and you‘re cutting down on paper waste from paper liner use.
Ingredients
- Medjool Dates – It‘s important to use medjool dates in this recipe because they are larger and sweeter – making them perfect for caramel!
- Date Water – This isn‘t some fancy new water you can buy (lol), it‘s just the water than you‘ll soak the dates in to soften them.
- Gluten Free Flour – I used Trader Joe‘s brand, but any brand is fine.
- Blanched Almond Flour
- Unsweetened Cocoa Powder
- Baking Powder
- Cinnamon
- Flax Seed Meal + Water – When combined and left to congeal, this mixture is a great substitute for eggs.
- Maple Syrup
- Extra Virgin Olive Oil
- Vanilla Extract
- Non-Dairy Milk – I used unsweetened vanilla oat milk, but use what you‘d like!
Substitutions
- Blanched Almond Flour – If you‘d prefer to use a different type of flour, like coconut or oat, just be mindful that this may change the amount you need to use.
- Flax Seed Meal + Water – If you‘d prefer, you can use egg replacers like the ones from Bob‘s Red Mill. If you aren‘t vegan or still consume eggs, you can also swap this out for real eggs.
- Extra Virgin Olive Oil – I prefer to use olive oil because it makes the muffins more light and airy, but if you want to use coconut oil instead you can. Just keep in mind, this may cause a slight change in flavor.
Recipe
Healthy Chocolate Caramel Muffins
Ingredients
Caramel
- 14 pitted medjool dates
- 1/4 cup + 2 tbsp date water (the water that the dates soaked in)
Dry Ingredients
- 1 cup gluten free flour
- 1 cup blanched almond flour
- 1/2 cup unsweetened cacao powder
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp cinnamon
Wet Ingredients
- 2 tbsp flax seed meal
- 6 tbsp water
- 3/4 cup maple syrup
- 1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/4 cup non-dairy milk
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350℉ and grease a 12-cup muffin tin or use paper/silicone muffin liners.
- Soak the dates in 3 1/2 cups (enough to completely cover them) of very hot water for at least 15 minutes to soften them.
- While the dates are soaking, make your flax seed eggs by mixing together the flax and 6 tbsp water. Set aside and let sit for 15 minutes.
- Combine all of your dry ingredients in a bowl and whisk together.
- Combine all of your wet ingredients (excluding the flax and water) in a separate bowl and mix together.
- Once the flax mixture has sat for 15 minutes, add it to the wet ingredients and stir to combine.
- Pour the dry ingredients into the wet and whisk together.
- Make your caramel – pour the softened dates and date water into a blender or food processor and blend until smooth. If you need to add more date water, add only one tbsp at a time.
- Fill your muffin cups with the chocolate muffin mix halfway.
- Place one tbsp caramel on top of each.
- Top each with remaining muffin mix.
- Bake in the oven for 27 to 33 minutes.
- If you have remaining caramel, feel free to frost the muffins with the remainder!
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