Chocolate and Zucchini Muffins

My recent lack of posting has absolutely nothing to do with lack of interest, and everything to do with lack of time. The problem is I need more than 24 hours in a day. Especially with the job I'm doing and trying to organise our wedding in such a short time. It's that hard to book in the big things, but as a friend recently said, the devil's in the detail. We're now at the pointy end of things and have to make decisions about readings and seating arrangements and music and oh yes, vows. Tim's determined that we'll write our own. Great in theory, difficult in practice. 

I've also made what I think is a very sensible decision and will no longer be icing the top tier of the wedding cake as originally planned. I continue to douse it weekly with brandy, but I've found someone to do it who has years of experience. I had an epiphany about a week ago and realised how scary it is that I've never used white icing before, and while I'm totally confident that I will one day be able to master it, I don't think the weeks before one's wedding is the right time to start trying! So in about a week I'll drop off one very heavy, very moist fruit cake, and pick up something that looks like an elegant wedding cake. I've bought a very cool cake topper, so stay tuned for the photos!

But back to the muffins. It's the season for zucchini and my brother Sam's garden is exploding! Time to help him out and since I love zucchini with it's tender sweetness, it wasn't a big ask. Combine it with chocolate and something beautiful happens. The pecans tie it all together. It may sound weird but this combination really works, although it is more of a grown up muffin with the olive oil flavour coming through. Also, I think they're better cold so resist the temptation to heat them up. They really are a lunch box treat you can feel good about.

Ingredients:

200g grated zucchini

150g dark chocolate, chopped

100g pecans halves - chopped except for 12

2 cups spelt flour

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

2 medium free-range eggs

1 tsp vanilla

Super simple: place the flour in a bowl and stir through the zucchini, chocolate, pecans and sugar. Add the remaining ingredients and combine very well with a wooden spoon.

Spoon the mixture evenly into a 12 hole muffin tin, press a pecan halve gently onto each one. Bake at 180ºC (fan forced) for about 20 minutes. You can do the skewer trick to check but 20  minutes is usually right.

Makes 12 large muffins or about 16 medium ones.