50 Calorie Chocolate Miracle Muffins

These are by far my favorite "diet" recipe that I have given a whirl, and actually what inspired me to start recording the recipes I've tried, edited, or created.  These are so freakin' good that they made me want to share them with the world!  People have laughed at me, rolled their eyes, and don't for a second believe that a 50 calorie muffin could taste like anything better than soggy cardboard.

And unlike the diet coke brownies from my last post, these are not only low calorie, but also have nutritional value!  They've got protein, are pretty darn low carb considering this is a chocolate muffin, and aren't high in fat or sugar either.  This is mostly accomplished by substituting out the usual unhealthy culprits in the ingredients list: oats in place of flour, unsweetened applesauce in place of butter, Splenda in place of sugar, and egg whites in place of whole eggs.  I'm typically not a fan of artificial sweetners such as Splenda, but for the results, I can deal with it.

The recipe I used can be found here:  Joe and Sue's Double Chocolate Muffins

This time, I actually highly recommend following the recipe as is.  The only adjustment I've made is using Hershey's Dark Chocolate morsels, the ones that are slightly larger than your typical chocolate chips.  I just prefer dark chocolate, and the larger chips make for more of a fudgy bite than normal sized chips, even if you are using the same amount of chocolate in the end.  The bigger gooey pockets are nicer and pack more flavor than the smaller ones.

Before baking...

...and after baking.  Yes, they look almost black before they cool.

What I'm most amazed by is that the nutrition facts actually check out!  So long as you're using about 3 tbsp of batter per muffin, they're going to be around 50 calories.  Of course, this also depends on how generous you are with sprinkling the chocolate chips on top.  I stuck to five per muffin, but I think 3 would be fine.

Nutrition facts (per 1 muffin- recipe makes 24):
Calories: 50~60ish, depending on size and amount of chips
Protein: 2.6g
Carbs: 7.8g
Fiber: 1.8g
Fat: 2.1g
Sugar: 3.2g

Things to potentially try: replacing the chocolate chips with butterscotch chips.  The results of this weren't bad, but they had a distinct coffee flavor (I have no clue why), and I am not a fan of anything coffee flavor.  My best friend enjoyed them at least!

Things not to try:  editing this into a lemon muffin recipe.  We tried.  It was a monstrous failure.  Even though the results look pretty ok here....they weren't.  We just tried to salvage the batter any way we could, and mini lemon pancakes resulted.  Still yuck.

At least The Boyfriend Food Disposal System still took care of them.