Brown Butter Zucchini Muffins

Moist and fluffy zucchini muffins with a nutty whole wheat and brown butter base. These brown butter zucchini muffins are the perfect morning treat!

Ingredients:

• Whole Wheat Flour: I love the added nuttiness this gives to the muffins alongside the brown butter, you could swap it with all-purpose flour but the texture may be slightly off.
• Vegetable Oil: Most zucchini bread/muffin recipes only use vegetable oil, but this recipe uses both vegetable oil and butter so we get an aromatic nutty muffin that is still moist and keeps well.
• Butter: I go more in depth on how to brown butter below, but it is super easy and boosts all the warm spices in these muffins. If you choose not to brown the butter, reduce the amount of melted butter used to 4 tablespoons.
• Shredded Zucchini: Zucchini is in season from June to August in the US and that is when I suggest making these for the freshest and most eco-friendly/sustainable baking.
• Chocolate Chips: These are technically optional, but who doesn’t want an excuse to eat chocolate for breakfast?
  

How to Make These Muffins:

These muffins are oil based so they involve no creaming, all you need is a good whisk.

Brown Butter 101:

Start by browning the butter, this has to cool so we do it first. Heat the butter in a saucepan on the stove until it is fully melted. Then continue heating it until it turns a dark amber color, it will most likely spurt and sputter during this process. Pour the now browned butter into a heat safe bowl and let fully cool.

Mixing the Batter:

Once the brown butter is complete, you can begin mixing the batter together. Start by whisking together your dry ingredients, set them to the side to use later. In a medium sized bowl, , whisk together the sugars, eggs, oil, butter, and vanilla. You want to fully incorporate the fats (butter and oil) together and sugars. This will take at least 2 minutes of whisking.

Then switch to using a kitchen spatula and fold in your shredded zucchini, be sure to fully spread it out in the batter. Using the same spatula, fold in your pre-whisked dry ingredients. Be sure to mix just to combine the flour in fully, over mixing will develop the muffins (like kneading bread) and make them tough. Finally fold in the chocolate chips.

Judging the Bake Time:

Once your batter is complete, scoop them into your muffin tins. The more batter you can get into a tin, the better. We start baking these muffins at 425ºF in order to give them the blast of heat they need to puff up before turning heat down to 350ºF for the rest of baking (15-20 minutes). I go more into the reasoning behind that in this post.

It can be hard to know when a moist chocolatey muffin like these are done but here are my tips for how to know:

1. Do they spring back when pressed lightly? If yes, the crumb structure has fully developed and the muffins are done.
2. Does a toothpick come out clean when inserted? Be sure to insert to the deepest part of the muffin for an accurate read.

Frequently Asked Questions:

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