Muffin or Cupcake? You Decide.

Last week I made these cupcakes (or is it muffins?) to serve with coffee on Friday while we had our friends Steve, Meri, and Cory over for a game of Scrabble. They are each a bit of a health nut, so I thought these would be the perfect sweets for the afternoon. The recipe is from the May 2007 issue of Everyday Food, and is one of the reader submitted recipes. I made a change or two, which I'll go over in my notes below. The changes made it seem a little more muffin-like than cupcake, but whatever you want to call it, they were delicious.

Ian's Sweet Zucchini Cupcakes
Recipe from Everyday Food & Ian Young; Makes 12












1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled)
1 cup packed dark-brown sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup coarsely chopped pecans or walnuts
1 zucchini (10 oz.), coarsely grated (1 1/2 cups)
1/3 cup vegetable oil
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line cups of a standard 12-cup muffin tin with paper or foil liners. Set aside.
• In a medium bowl, mix together flour, brown sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt. Mix in nuts.
• In another bowl, combine zucchini, oil, eggs, and vanilla; add to flour mixture, and mix just until combined (do not overmix).
• Divide batter evenly among cups. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cupcake comes out clean, 40 to 45 minutes.
• Coll in tin on a wire rack for 10 minutes; turn cupcakes out, right side up, and cool completely.

My notes: The magazine includes a recipe for cream cheese frosting, but we had them plain. I also substituted whole white wheat flour for half of the all-purpose. I think the whole wheat is probably what made it a little more muffin like, but it could have been the lack of frosting too. Either way I didn't miss the frosting and I thought they tasted delicious. I also used pecan bits, since I happened to have a bag in the pantry, instead of buying more nuts just for the recipe. I'm definitely gonna pull this recipe out again when my father-in-law has a plethora of zucchini ready to leave his garden.