Double Chocolate Cherry Muffins

I had a bag of cherries in the fridge that really needed to be eaten! I LOVE cherries but these were almost too far gone. In all honesty, I had just forgotten about them. I have a serious fruit buying compulsion, especially during the summer months when fruit is so yummy! I buy too much! I guess that could be a good thing, right? Anyway, a few weeks ago, I had found a chocolate chip cherry muffin on a blog and thought I'd saved the recipe. Nope, could not find it. So, I found a few and just came up with my own version! They are so good!! The cherry flavor doesn't really come through too much, but they are still great! And healthy too!




Double Chocolate Cherry Muffins


1/2 cup coconut oil* (or melted and cooled butter)
2 large eggs (best if at room temperature)
1 cup buttermilk (best if at room temperature)
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 3/4 cups whole wheat flour
2/3 cups unsweetened cocoa powder
1 cup rapaurda**
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1 cup chopped fresh cherries



Preheat oven to 375. Butter muffin tin or line with paper liners. In a medium bowl whisk buttermilk, eggs and vanilla together. In a large bowl whisk together flour, rapadura, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Stir in the chocolate chips. With a spatula fold in wet ingredients and cherries until barely combined. Next mix in coconut oil. Spoon mixture into muffin tin and bake for 18-20 minutes. Toothpick in center should come out pretty clean with a few crumbs!



*If you've never used coconut oil, I highly recommend trying it. It is so good for you! In these muffins I can't taste/smell the coconut oil at all. If you have a problem with the smell of coconut, get refined coconut oil. When baking with coconut oil it's best to use room temperature milk/eggs because the coconut oil will solidify when added to something cold. I didn't set mine out very long but it mixed in fine. Always melt coconut oil in a pot on the stove. Or just set it near a hot oven and it will melt!

**Another note, rapadura is not the same as brown sugar. Brown sugar is not a healthy alternative to sugar. I think this is a huge misunderstanding. Brown sugar is basically white refined sugar with added molasses. So, it is not a better alternative. Rapadura is still sugar. It's just not processed or refined which means that it has much better nutritional value than white sugar. So, it is healthier but of course it should be used in moderation!



Oh and do you want to know what all fruit we have right now? I just went to the store yesterday and bought:

seedless watermelon
cherries (yes, more)
green grapes
clementines

and we already had:
peaches
apples
bananas
oh, and the old bag of cherries (they are gone now though!)

I also have organic frozen strawberries and blueberries in the freezer. How do we afford it?? Well, we get help from WIC. And also I buy more fruit than packaged snacks. I'd rather buy a bag of grapes than a box of crackers.

We're just a little fruity!