Black Bean & Beetroot Chocolate Muffins
These heavenly muffins are a total joy to make and eat! They are richly chocolatey and decadently squidgy and soft. Such a chocoholics’ dream! You would never know there was no flour in them!
This recipe is blissful for people living with allergies or food sensitivities as they are totally free from wheat, gluten, grains, nuts, dairy and soya, and are sweetened only with maple syrup.
The dough is made with whipped up black beans, beetroot and eggs; these muffins are fantastically nutritious and packed with iron and rich in protein and fibre
This is a pretty foolproof recipe – just blend all the ingredients together in a food processor, spoon it into muffin cases and bake them. Hey presto, the greatest chocolate muffins in the world!
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Black Bean & Beetroot Chocolate Muffins
Ingredients
- 400 g Black Beans (tins are usually 400g)
- 100 g Beetroot (cooked, see note below)
- 4 Eggs
- 120 ml Maple Syrup
- 2 tbsp Olive Oil
- 1 tsp Vanilla Extract
- 75 g Cocoa Powder (or raw cacao powder)
- 1 tsp Baking Powder
- 1 pinch Salt (optional)
- 90 g Dark Chocolate (chips)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 180℃ (conventional)/160℃ (fan), line a muffin tin with cases.
- Chop the cooked beetroot into chunks and put into a food processor along with the drained black beans and one egg. Blitz until smooth.
- Add the remaining eggs, maple syrup, olive oil and vanilla extract and blend again.
- Tip in the cocoa powder, baking powder and salt, and blend again.
- Once the mixture is smooth, gently stir through a third of the chocolate chips.
- Scoop the batter into the prepared muffin cases, and sprinkle with the remaining chocolate chips.
- Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until a cake taster comes out clean. Transfer onto a rack to cool.
Notes
- Ensure that you buy cooked beetroot in its natural juices, and not cooked beetroot in vinegar.
- You can buy chocolate chips or buttons or just break up a bar of chocolate. Ideally use chocolate that is at least 70% cocoa solids. This not only gives a richer taste, but also contains less sugar and more nutrients than chocolate with lower levels of cocoa solids. However young children may well prefer milk or white chocolate chips. Choose dairy-free options if needed.
- The muffins will keep for up to 3 days in an airtight container.
- They can be frozen for up to 3 months. Thaw to room temperature to serve which will probably only take 20-30 minutes.
Made these for my son’s lunchbox and they were a huge hit! Just about to make them again for next week – thank you for the great recipe!
An absolute winner with my children !!
These are the best muffins ever. I have the most challenging eater, who hands down said these were ‘Epic!’ And she loves them. What an amazing way to get black beans and beetroot down her.
I did 50:50 with maple syrup and date syrup, only because date syrup is a bit cheaper than maple. Didn’t seem to affect recipe and result at all. Thank you for all your super delicious and nutritious recipes, honestly you’re a life saver 💙👌
These are insanely good
These sounded like they could taste awful or awesome, they are definitely the latter! My 10 year old and 14 year old love these as much as I do. With no nuts we now have a nutritious yet ‘naughty’ snack for school. Thank you!
Wonderful they hit the awesome button!
These are soo good! My son helped make these and absolutely loved them! I plan to make a second batch and freeze them so we’ve always got a stash. Lovely to know we can have treats that are packed with goodness and no rubbish! Thank you so much Lucinda ❤️
I made these for my boys this morning! They are so delicious and easy to make, and lovely knowing they’ve got beans and beetroot in them 🙂 Thank you!
An absolute genius way of including vegetables into cake form. You will not taste the beans so much or the beetroot, but the natural sweetness and moisture of which add and enhance the chocolatey flavour. And absolute hits with both of my kids one with ASD who is very picky… in fact he doesn’t even like chocolate, but he was intrigued by these and ate it within two seconds 🙂
Lucinda,
You’ve been a god send to my nutritional overhaul. Thank you for all these wonderful recipes and I look so much forward every weekend receiving the new ones.
Please can you collate a new recipe book to include all your recent recipes from the newsletter…I will buy it in the heartbeat!
Your loyal follower,
Irina Martin
These worked extremely well and the whole family thought they were delicious. It’s hard to believe there is no flour in them!
My 11 year old is compiling his own recipe book so that he can cook or bake whenever he wants, and these are definitely being added.
Totally delicious!
Gorgeous recipe, super chocolate-y!!
I was honestly quite suprised at how great these came out, couldn’t taste the beetroot at all. I wonder if you could a whole cake in this batter?
Thank you for another marvel Lucinda, these have been devoured by my 2 and their friends!
Delicious, simple to make and passed the taste test for my son and husband 😊 Haven’t told them the ingredients!
We love these in our house, great for lunchboxes with no nuts and seeds. Has anyone tried a sort of blondie version with chickpeas instead of black beans and sweet potato instead of beetroot? Wonder if it would work…
Lovely idea – I will add this on the list to try and develop a blondie muffin!
Thanks! Or maybe pumpkin instead of sweet potato?