Guilt Free Chocolate Molten Lava Cake

After my HUGE PARENTING FAIL I have decided that clean living is the way to go in our household. Problem with clean living is that you have to give up a lot of super delicious high calorie, high fat, high sugar treats and sweets and I am the sweets queen. Sad face.Oh well! I also don't mind healthy food so I just need to find substitutes for my old favorites. I find that the only problem with healthy sweets is they taste like cardboard and dirt's bastard son. NOT ANYMORE! How would you like a big steaming forkful of this ooey gooey rich chocolatey molten lava cake? YES PLEASE!

This recipe is adapted from a couple different  recipes from Zucchini Brownies I found on the internet to fit my needs and wants. It is also easily adaptable to your current eating lifestyle. We're not Gluten/Dairy/Meat free so we don't have as many obstacles when cooking, but it only needs a couple tweaks to do what fits for you. If you do adapt, please share what you changed in the comments to help others! The original recipe can be found here.

You're going to need a few things that you might not have just off hand so read the recipe first and make a list!

Recipe for Guilt Free Chocolate Molten Lava Cake (Or brownies!)

• 2 cups raw zucchin, chopped
• 1/4 cup coconut oil
• 1/2 cup Greek yogurt (or a vegan/dairy free substitute)
• 1 cup sugar, or equivalent of another sweetener (honey, agave, stevia etc) 
• 1/4 cup chia gel (or one egg, or different egg substitute) 
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour (or gluten free oat flour) 
• 1/2 cup almond flour
• 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (dark works too)
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt 
• 1/4 cup mini semi-sweet chips (optional or substitute)

Start by roughly chopping your zucchini to easily measure out 2 cups. I found that just shy of 2 medium zucchinis were enough and I had extra left over for dinner later that night! Yum!

Add your zucchini, coconut oil, greek yogurt and sugar (or substitutes) into a blender or food processor and blend until smooth.Add your chia seed gel and mix to incorporate. Set aside.

Add your dry ingredients into a seperate bowl and mix together.

Pour your wet into your dry and mix until incorporated. It will be much thicker and dense than boxed mixes.

At this point you can add your chips, just mix until evenly distributed. You can also do a layer of the chips in the middle of the pan for a more molten-y effect, but either will work.

Grease your pan with some coconut oil and pour the batter in and bake in a deep loaf pan for about 25-30 minutes. If you want more of a brownie, bake them in a brownie pan, or a more shallow dish. The trick with this is that the center doesn't completely cook and set up, so the inside remains gooey... and since there are no eggs, you don't need to worry about under-cooking it. You could even eat the batter raw if you want! Might be good on top of chocolate ice cream cuz it sort of tastes like the Brownie Batter Ice Cream from Ben&Jerry's.

When it's done, stick a tooth pick in the center. Brownies should come out with moist crumbs, cake should be firm on top, and gooey inside. Serve it up with a fork, or some ice cream or whatever you want!

As it cools, it will set up and become more dense and brownie like. After a day in the fridge they were almost like thick fudge and still yummy! ENJOY!

Gooey center goodness!!

Perfect molten center!