Coconut and Berries

Healthy, Vegan Recipes by Emma Potts

Hazelnut Butter-Chocolate Chip Muffins

Hazelnut Butter-Chocolate Chip Muffins

I’m more a muffin than a cookie girl. Maybe because I can more easily justify eating muffins for breakfast…unless they’re my Apple and Raisin Oaty Breakfast Cookies that is- a recipe created especially for the first meal of the day! Breakfast aside, I  still usually prefer muffins for some reason and it had been far too long since I’d made any.

Meridian Hazelnut Butter

A lovely friend who came to stay recently brought me a jar of this hazelnut butter as a “thank you for having me” gift. She clearly knows that food presents go down well around these parts! As much as I’ve been enjoying it slathered on sprouted grain toast with a spot of apricot jam, I felt it deserved to be used for something a little more special.

Hazelnut Butter-Chocolate Chip Muffins

Muffins were the answer! Hazelnut Butter-Chocolate Chip Muffins! I love using nut butter in baking for the rich flavour and moisture it gives, which also means you can cut back or eliminate added oils. I had my fingers crossed when I shut the oven door as admittedly I’d cobbled this recipe together fairly quickly, but they turned out so tender with a lovely crumb.

Hazelnut butter is fairly widely available these days, but if you can’t find it it’s easy to make at home! Here is a simple how-to.

Hazelnut Butter-Chocolate Chip Muffins

I couldn’t resist adding chocolate chips as everyone knows that chocolate and hazelnuts is a classic combination, but you could do chopped apricots or crystallized ginger and hazelnuts, or whatever sounds good to you. 

Hazelnut Butter-Chocolate Chip Muffins

 This recipe makes only 6 muffins so you’ll probably want to double it!

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Hazelnut Butter-Chocolate Chip Muffins

Yield: 6 Muffins

Ingredients

  • 3/4 C Light Spelt flour
  • 1-1/2 tsp Baking powder
  • 1/8 tsp Salt
  • 1/4 C Apple purée (unsweetened applesauce)
  • 1/4 C Coconut sugar
  • 1/2 Tbsp Ground flax
  • 3 Tbsp Hazelnut butter
  • 1 Tbsp Oil (e.g. sunflower OR melted coconut oil)
  • 1/2 tsp Vanilla extract
  • 1/2 C Almond milk
  • 1/2 tsp Apple cider vinegar
  • 1/4 C Chocolate chips
  • 2 Tbsp Chopped hazelnuts (optional)

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 180C/350F, Line a muffin tin with 6 paper cases.
  2. Stir together the first three ingredients in a medium-sized bowl.
  3. In a separate bowl whisk together apple purée through to apple cider vinegar.
  4. Add wet to dry and stir just to combine.
  5. Fold in the chocolate chips and hazelnuts, if using.
  6. Divide the batter evenly between the muffin cases and bake for approx 20 minutes, until lightly browned and firm on top, and a tester comes out clean.

Notes

* To make these gluten-free: Replace the spelt flour with 1/2 cup each of oat flour and 1/2 cup blanched almond flour and 2 Tbsp tapioca starch. Increase flax to 1 Tbsp and baking powder to 2 tsp. Omit oil.

http://www.coconutandberries.com/2014/03/17/hazelnut-butter-chocolate-chip-muffins/

I’m submitting this recipe at the weekly link-up, Wellness Weekends.

Hazelnut Butter-Chocolate Chip Muffins

Muffins or cookies? 

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Comments

  1. what beautiful looking muffins - I want one now for my breakfast (despite having recently finished breakky). I love nut butters too - hazelnut is one that I don’t find easy to find in the shops but I should try making some as I love hazelnuts. And I agree they go so well with chocolate

    • Thank you Johanna. I often catch up on blogs over breakfast and by the time I’ve finished I usually want a second breakfast!

  3. These look so great, Emma! I just love hazelnuts so much, but have never added them to muffins. I’m also a muffin girl, if you’re asking. 😉
    It’s also really great that you only used 1 tablespoon of oil!

    • Glad you’re a fellow muffin and hazelnut lover! Hope you get to try these.

  4. These look sooo delicious Emma! I love hazelnuts and chocolate together and like you, I love muffins. I make muffins weekly.. Different flavors all the time. I love cookies too, haha!

    • I used to make muffins weekly..don’t know why I stopped that! And tbh I love cookies too 😀

  5. These look delicious. I will take a muffin over a cookie any day. I can’t say that I’ve ever seen plain hazelnut butter, just Nutella. I bet this recipe would be doable with any kind of nut butter though, right? I agree, everything is better with chocolate chips!

    • You could definitely do another nut butter. PB or almond would be quite different but I’m sure yummy!

  6. These look lovely Emma! I am always reluctant to put almond / hazelnut butters into baked goods, because I love them so much plain and they are a bit pricey here. But I think it would be worth it for these muffins!

    • They are on the pricey side here too unfortunately, particularly specialty ones, which is why I usually only get the more “normal” varieties. I think I need to set aside a nut butter budget!

  7. Hazelnut butter is the best thing ever! I could eat a whole jar all by itself and I love to bake with it, too!

    • I hadn’t had the plain kind until now. Only with chocolate or carob. It’s so delicious though! Just had a little browse on your site for hazelnut butter recipes and I’m definitely making those Bean & Spelt Patties 😀

    • They really do! A tasty breakfast is the only thing which gets me up in the morning and muffins or pancakes almost have me bounding out of bed 😉

    • This was the first time I’d tried it! No idea why as I love their almond and cashew butters.

  11. “This recipe makes only 6 muffins so you’ll probably want to double it!”
    Haha, you KNOW I’ll be doubling this one.
    (Just had to say this, since you’re always pointing out how much my recipes make 😉 )

    These look scrumpdidlyumptious.

  12. friends that give you hazelnut butter are the best types of friends, for sure. i was always more of a muffin girl, too. probably because i loved eating jumbo sized muffins and being naive and thinking they weren’t bad for me…

    • mmmmm jumbo muffins! yum! It’s probably a good thing I don’t have a jumbo muffin pan. Quality over quantity anyway 😀
      My friend Hannah is so thoughtful and generous.

  13. I LOVE hazelnut butter! The only time I’ve had it is in Turkey where hazelnut butter (with sugar) is in so many of the desserts and tastes heavenly on basically anything 😉 I need to make these muffins - I love that they make a smaller portion :) Pinned!

    • I didn’t know that about Turkish desserts. Interesting. But yes hazelnut butter IS heavenly. I actually halved one of these muffins and sandwiched the halves together with extra HB! 😀

  15. These look divine! And I’m totally a muffin girl too, although you would never be able to tell from my recipe index 😉 I love when muffin recipe are for 6! I cook just for me and after 6 muffins of one flavour I’m generally ready for a different one.

    • Same here. I’m just cooking for myself and there’s only so many muffins I can eat or stash in the freezer!
      Glad you like the look of these ones :)

  16. Oh, girl…this recipe just went to the top of my To Make list! Luscious. I’m more of a muffin girl as well. I love me some cookies, but there’s something very satisfying about crumbly, cake muffins.

    • Happy to hear about all those in my muffin club! Hope you do get to make these Annie. I’m sure you’ll like them 😀

    • It is yummy. Almond is still my favourite but it’s nice for a change definitely and works wonderfully in baking :)

  19. Hi Emma, your hazelnut butter chocolate chip muffins look very tempting! I adore cookies AND muffins! I can’t have any grains or sugars, but I think I could convert these fairly easily. I often make my own hazelnut butter, it is so easy to do in the food processor. I use it as a substitute for other nut butters and I make homemade carob nutella too, yum! Thanks for sharing this recipe!

    • When I was on a strict anti-candida diet I think I got a lot of my calories from nut butter! I’ve made a carob hazelnut butter before too. So so good :)
      Sorry to tempt you with these muffins but I hope you can make them over to suit your needs.

    • Great! Almond butter is still my favourite multi-purpose nut butter but I did love the hazelnut here.

    • Thanks Lisa. I usually freeze muffins so I can just pop one out when I want it but I’d imagine they’d keep in a sealed container for 4-5 days. Let me know how you like them!

    • Hehe, I liked the crackly tops too. I’m new to hazelnut butter but it’s definitely got my vote.

  23. I’m going to make these too Emma! They look so delicious. I make all my own nut-butters, so I’ll just roast some hazelnuts and make the nut butter first. Looking forward to making these this weekend!! I LOVE muffins and basically every ingredient in these. I don’t ever buy spelt flour, so I’m going to attempt a gluten-free version. I’ll let you know…but I bake gluten-free so often, so I know these will work. YUM!

    • Looking forward to hearing how your GF version turns out! I’m not GF, though I don’t eat a lot of gluten, but I know my readers especially appreciate GF recipes so I’m trying to get some more practice baking that way.

      • AMAZING!! I just pulled them out of the oven and the smell of the hazelnut butter is divine and they are golden, gorgeous and rose beautifully! Once they cool, I’ll take photos but I know they’ll taste divine because the batter tasted incredible. My daughter (almost 3) and I kept sticking our fingers in it.

        • Oh, duh, I forgot to mention my gluten-free changes…I used 1/2 cup each of oat flour and 1/2 cup blanched almond flour, increased the flax to 1 tbsp, added 2 tablespoons tapioca starch and I increased the baking powder to 2 teaspoons to make up for the lack of structure of using almond flour. Since spelt absorbs more liquid, that’s why I knew I’d need more than just 3/4 cup flour. Also, since almond flour gives so much moisture, I eliminated the 1 tbsp oil. I cooked them a couple minutes longer as well and let them completely cool before eating. Everything else I did the same. They worked out perfect! I just ate one and they are soooooo amazing and incredibly moist! Thanks so much for the awesome recipe!! Since you like hazelnut and chocolate chips, you should try my Cinnamon Hazelnut chocolate chip cookies. They are to die for

          • You are a pro GF baker Brandi! I’ve learnt a lot from you seriously. Oat, almond and tapioca are my go-to GF flours as well so your subs sound perfect.
            I must try your hazelnut choc chip cookies some time too. I think baking is going to have to go on hold until after my house move next week since I can’t get through a whole batch of anything that quickly and can’t be filling up my freezer!

      • I’ve made 3 batches already, they are so good! I also wanted to mention, that I must have been mistaken in my previous note about needing to bake them a couple of minutes longer, because the last 2 batches were perfect exactly at 20 minutes. Just wanted to note that.

  24. Hi, thanks for the recipe, they´re delish! I made some replacement according to the stock situation in my pantry (honey instead of coconut sugar, almond butter instead of hazelnut , rice milk instead of hazelnut). They turned out just a tad sticky, they look perfect but when I chew they feel somewhat sticky - is that normal?

    • Thanks for trying the recipe Vesna. They aren’t sticky at all as written. I imagine it’s because you subbed a liquid for a dry sweetener….
      Glad you still liked them though!

Trackbacks

  4. […] I was concerned at first with the relatively low amount of coconut sugar listed, if it would be sweet enough for my raging sweet tooth. However, my fears were slapped in the face with the most amazing, perfectly sweet, moistest muffin I think I’ve ever had. The hazelnut butter is not overpowering, in fact, it is subtle but gives wonderful depth of flavor to the muffins and the chocolate chips, well, they just make everything glorious! I made a few adaptations to the recipe since I bake gluten-free and wanted my hubby to share in the muffin glory and he doesn’t do wheat. So, below are my changes that I made, but you will need to go her site for the original recipe and you can note my changes below if you want it gluten-free and oil-free. I’ll explain my changes below. See her original full recipe here. […]

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