Hubby had a stinky day today.  I know I shouldn’t reward and cheer him with food, but he was going to go to the movies to de-stress.  A huge thunderstorm changed his plans so I threw these together for dessert and we ate them while watching Captain America.  He seems to be his jolly old self again and is now announcing that we must all gather back in the living room to watch the next episode of Lost, which we are working our way through on Netflix.  Now he’s looking over my shoulder as I type, into the farmyard.  He looked at one of our teenage Americana chicks and said, “Looks like Bantam on steroids out there.” lol  Bantam is our little bantam hen.  I won’t be so arrogant as to think that my squash fritters are what did the job of turning his frown upside down, especially since he despises all members of the squash family, but it’s so good to see him relaxed.

Honestly, I wouldn’t know these muffins had zucchini in them if I hadn’t created the recipe around it and grated the things myself.  The insides ended up custardy and remind me of cream puff custard filling.  I think it was all the vanilla I put in and the eggs couldn’t help but sit there and thicken while the rest of the muffin browned on all sides.   YUM!

They are only gluten and dairy free because I used garbanzo/fava flour in place of white flour and there is no longer cow’s milk in the house, it’s all almond milk all the time but for the cream or half and half I buy for my coffee.  I also needed to use up some ground almonds I saved from making almond milk on Tuesday.  They don’t last very long once you’ve “juiced” them.

Ingredients:

2 c. grated fresh zucchini

2 eggs, beaten

1 c. water

1/2 c. almond milk

1 c. turbinado sugar

2 tsp. vanilla extract

1/4 tsp. almond extract

1 c. garbanzo/fava flour (also good with a nice Chianti)

1 c. ground almonds

1/4  to 1/2 tsp. salt.  I went easy on it for health reasons and think they could use a bit more.  I think 1/2 tsp. would do the trick.

1 tsp. baking powder

2 T poppy seeds

Extra virgin olive oil

Method:

Heat oven to 425 degrees.

Whisk together beaten eggs, almond milk, and water.  Stir in sugar and zucchini.  Sift together dry ingredients with a whisk.  Combine the two.  I’d say fold, but the dry ingredients are so lumpy I had to whisk them in a bit.

Grease muffin pan with olive oil (I’ve just resorted to using it over anything else.  You PAM people may find the muffins release easier if you spray on a coat.  If I’d had muffin paper liners I’d have used them.)

Fill muffin pan cups to the top.  Bake 45 minutes.  Yes, 45.   I started with 25, added 10, added 10 more until they were finally solidified in the center and golden on the outside.  They took some finagling to get out of the pan but I’m not a PAM person.  😉