Low Carb Chocolate Chip Muffins

Ah, chocolate chip muffins, I love them so. These are two of my favorite recipes. The first caramel muffin recipe is the happy result of a baking experiment gone right. Almond flour can be a bit dry in the sweeter baking recipes, especially if you use low carb sweeteners like erythritol which are also on the dry side.

I was wondering how to get a muffin recipe that had the rich, melty consistency of a regular flour based muffin, without all the carbs and gluten. I had some Walden Farms Caramel dip sitting in the cupboard. This dip has no calories or sugar, and it's made from cellulose, which is a fiber which has a tendency to attract moisture and hold it.

It occurred to me that I might be able to use that moisture attracting property to give almond flour muffins more of a creamy mouth feel and flavor. It worked out pretty well. These have that melty flour-butter consistency, and are just excellent with or without additional butter.

The Enjoy Life chips do have sugar in them, so if you prefer sugar free, I recommend ChocoPerfection chocolate (see picture on right). You can just fine chop up the bar and use the chocolate chunks as chips. The mint and raspberry flavors would be excellent in these muffins.

Caramel Chocolate Chip Mini Muffins

2 cups Almond Flour
1/8 cup erythritol
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp xanthan gum
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup sour cream
2 T butter, melted, and slightly cooled
1 tsp stevia glycerite
½ cup of Walden Farms SF Caramel Dip
¾ cup Enjoy Life Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips (or Lilly's chocolate chips or a chopped ChocoPerfection bar)

Directions

Preheat oven to 350F and line 45 mini-muffin cups with paper liners.
In a medium bowl, whisk together the almond flour, erythritol, baking soda, salt and xanthan gum.
In a smaller bowl, beat the eggs lightly, then add the sour cream, cooled butter and stevia.
Stir the liquid mixture into the almond flour mixture and mix well.
Fill each muffin cup about ¾ full.
Bake 20-25 minutes, or until muffin tops are lightly brown and springy-firm to the touch.
Remove and let cool. Cooling them will make it much easier to remove the paper.
Store them in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

Makes about 45 mini muffins. Each muffin has 63 calories, 5 grams of fat, 3 grams of net carbs, and 2 grams of protein.

Rich Chocolate Chip Muffins

Because they are full size muffins, these have 8 net carbs each, which is a little high. But when you really gotta have something treat like, they totally hit the spot. Delicious with butter!

2 cups Almond Flour
1 cup heavy cream
2 large eggs
1/8 cup melted butter
1/4 cup erythritol or xylitol
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp. baking soda
¼ tsp. salt
½ cup of Enjoy Life Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips (or Lilly's chocolate chips or a chopped ChocoPerfection bar)

Preheat oven to 350F degrees. Place cupcake papers in individual muffin holes of regular sized 12 count muffin pan.
Mix almond flour and cream.
Add eggs one at a time, and stir until mixed.
Add butter, baking soda, flavoring, sweetener and salt and mix.
Add chocolate and stir until evenly distributed. (Measure accurately because chocolate is high in carb).
Spoon mixture into pan, filling each cupcake paper about 2/3 full.
Bake for about 20 minutes or until golden. Let cool, and serve with butter.

Makes 12 muffins. Nutrition per each chocolate chip muffin: 253 calories, 23 grams of fat, 6 grams of protein, 11 grams of carb, 3 grams of fiber for a net carb total of 8 grams per muffin.