Dairy-Free Chocolate Chip Muffins

Have you ever had vitatop muffins? I really like them! I don't have the biggest sweet tooth, but periodically I get cravings for these yummy muffins. You can toast them and put some "banana cream" (frozen bananas processed in the food processor with some non-dairy milk) in between two vitatops. It's like a healthy ice cream sandwich. The downside of vitatops are the cost which is usually 4-5 dollars for a box of four. They are also made with eggs and I am trying to avoid animal products as much as possible. So I was excited when I found a recipe to make your very own dairy-free vitatops muffins. We had a late lunch today so we ended up having a dessert for dinner night featuring these muffins.

From Chocolate Covered Katie

Ingredients

(makes 12)

• 4 T non-dairy milk of choice
• 4 T oil (I used coconut and EVOO with success)
• 1 T vanilla
• 2 T ground flax or 2 tsp energ powder
• 1 cup  pumpkin
• 1 cup all-purpose flour (I used 1/2 whole wheat flour, 1/2 all purpose)
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 4 T cocoa powder
• 4 T raw sugar (or white sugar)
• 3 2 stevia packets (or 2 T of additional sugar)
• 1/2 cup dairy-free chocolate chips

Method

Preheat oven to 350 F, and grease a muffin pan or line a muffin pan with liners. In a mixing bowl, combine first 5 ingredients. In a separate bowl, combine all remaining ingredients and stir well. Now mix wet into dry and stir until just combined. Don’t over-mix. Distribute batter evenly among 12 muffin cups. Bake 15 minutes or until a toothpick comes out of the muffins clean, then allow to cool 5-10 minutes before removing from the muffin tins.

Optional: Serve warm with Banana Cream!