Whole Wheat Super Food Zucchini Muffins

I've been having fun with chia seeds lately.  Mostly I love them with some ground flax in my oatmeal every morning.  Seriously, it's the breakfast of champions.  I've only just started experimenting with baking with chia seeds.  They naturally form a gel when placed in liquid so they can work as a binding agent, though I'm not sure they can be used to entirely replace ingredients with good results.  That said I decided to try them out in some zucchini muffins because my girls had their hearts set on me making some "kini muffins" this week.  Basically the chia seeds replaced one of the 3 eggs I would normally use.  The chocolate chips are, in my opinion, unnecessary, but crucial to getting my girls excited about a baked good.  The end result had a great flavor and texture (I like the little crunch you get from the seeds) and my girls, especially my 3 year old, wolfed them down.  Truly.  I made 30 this morning and now have 11 left.

Ingredients

• 2 cups whole wheat flour
• 1 cup all purpose flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp ginger
• ½ tsp nutmeg
• 2 Tbs cinnamon
• ½ cup ground flax
• 2 Tbs chia seeds
• 1/3 cup plain nonfat Greek yogurt
• ½ cup stevia/ sugar baking mix
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• ½ cup butter, softened
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 3 cups shredded zucchini (do not drain)
• 1 cup chocolate chips (optional)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Mix dry ingredients in a bowl until all combined.
3. Combine Greek yogurt, sugar, butter, egg and vanilla and mix into dry ingredients.
4. Fold zucchini and chocolate chips into batter.
5. Fill lightly greased muffin tins to about ¾ full (these muffins don’t rise a whole lot) and place in preheated oven.
6. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until tops spring back and edges begin to brown.  Let cool about 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack.
7. Eat warm or cold, morning, evening or any time in between.

Note: I used 1 cup of all purpose flour because I had a limited supply of whole wheat flour.  I'm sure these would turn out as well with all whole wheat flour, but I decided to be true to today's experiment and write it as I made it today.