Chocolate zucchini mownies

Yup. I wrote mownies. They are kinda like muffins, but kinda like brownies. So we're going to call them mownies. Today (8/8) is National Zucchini Day according to whatever food calendar I was looking at the day I decided to set up annually repeating menu items in my calendar. Since we got more zucchini in our CSA this week I decided this would be a great holiday to actually celebrate and not just delete for this year....

They boys and I had lunch at 2pm, and I may have over eaten at the buffet. So I wasn't hungry for dinner. But I had a sweet tooth. So chocolate zucchini muffins sounded perfect. But I didn't want to use as much sugar as the recipes were calling for, and I'm a BIG fan of swapping out applesauce for oil in my baking. Especially since I made my first batch of homemade sauce from our trees this week. YUM! The mownies was me adjusting a variety of ingredients from other recipes and not really reading the instructions at all. I think they're delicious. ODS ate one and went back to gaming. YDS asked how many he was allowed to eat (one). DH had one but I haven't been able to get a descriptive response out of him. I made 12 bars and  10 muffins with this recipe. If you were careful about being even about things I bet you could probably get 12 muffins too. (I had to go to the kitchen and count how many muffins it made and there were 5 muffins missing, so DH must have grabbed another one. I'll take that as a compliment)

Dry Ingredients:
1 c brown sugar (not packed)
1 c all purpose flour
1 c whole wheat flour
1 c cocoa powder (measured then sifted)
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
2 tbs buttermilk powder (or just use 1/2c buttermilk instead of milk later)

Liquid ingredients:
1 c applesauce
3 eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 c milk

Other ingredients:
2 c shredded zucchini (one large'ish' zucc shredded)
2 handfuls chocolate chips (minus one chip that has to be taste tested by whatever child is around while you bake)

Steps:
Before mixing I set out my silicone bake ware and preheated my oven to 350.
I mixed all my dry ingredients together in a bowl and set aside.
Then I mixed all my wet ingredients together in my stand mixer.
I added the zucchini to the wet ingredients until combined.
Then turned off the mixer, lifted the head and added about 1/2 the dry ingredients. I lowered the head and made sure they were all incorporated together before adding the rest of the dry ingredients.
I sprinkled in the chocolate chips.
I used the 1/2 c measuring cup to fill the bake ware about 3/4 full.
Then I baked then on cookie sheet for 30 minutes.

I rode to the store while they were finishing up since we were out of milk for breakfast. DH got them out of the oven and they were on the cooling racks when I got home. He's a sweetie! If you make these I hope you enjoy them as much as we are. I love being able to make our baked goods just that little bit more healthy. =)