Greek Yogurt Muffins with Dark Chocolate Chips

When it comes to sugar, I am the first person with sticky fingers if it's anywhere in the vicinity.  If it were up to my palette and not my waistline, there would be donuts for dinner, cookies for lunch and all the coffee cake and muffins I could shovel down for breakfast.

Luckily, I've discovered small ways to incorporate sweet things into a healthy diet.  I was checking out Julia's Album and knocked over a recipe for Greek yogurt muffins with chocolate chips.  With a Saturday afternoon at my disposal and all of the ingredients in the kitchen, I couldn't resist. 

I have ambitions of opening something along the lines of a bakery at some point in my life.  One day a long, long time ago, my Grandma let me bake "cookies" with any ingredients I chose.  Those cookies lacked flour of any kind and I can only remember them being rather like gooey blobs than anything that resembled a cookie.  For my sake, Grandma stomached whatever concoction I had created and I'm pretty sure she did it with a smile, too.

With that small ounce of encouragement (despite my realization later that they must have been atrocious and I cannot believe we ate them.. because I pretended to like the mush, too, ironically), I grew to love baking.  After learning more about health and alternative ingredients, I'm anticipating a bakery full of zucchini brownies and sweet potato muffins.

For today, though, I thought I would try out this Greek yogurt muffin recipe.  The thing I love about Greek yogurt is it's versatility.  I can have it on a taco or use it in my baking or gobble spoonfuls, just plain with fruit and honey on top.   

For this recipe, I used dark chocolate chips because I feel less guilty eating those in the morning.  

You can see the base recipe I used here, but because I like to experiment I changed it up a bit.

GREEK YOGURT MUFFINS WITH DARK CHOCOLATE CHIPS

2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour   
1 cup raw cane sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/3 cup sunflower oil
2 eggs
2/3 cup Greek yogurt
1 cup  dark chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix dry ingredients in a bowl.

Whisk oil, eggs and yogurt together in another bowl.

Add wet ingredients to dry and stir together. Don't stir too much because the mixture gets stickier with each rotation.  Fold chocolate chips into the mixture.

Bake for about 20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Yields about 14 small to medium muffins

Not to toot my own horn, but ... TOOOT! These are wonderful in a light and fluffy kind of way. The subtle sweetness of the dark chocolate chips is delightful paired with the not too sweet muffin. I will definitely be grabbing one of these on the way out the door in the morning for the next few days!

If you liked this, you might also like Avocado Stuffed Turkey Burgers, Watermelon Spritz Delight or Banana & Egg Pancakes.