So I’ve had quite the weekend….Thursday evening I had my second playoff game (I play in an old ladies ringette league) and we were playing the first place team. We’ve played this team two to three times previously and we generally lose by about ten goals. In some weird twist of fate we were tied 4-4 at the end of the 2nd period (we only play two periods in ringette). With 15 seconds left in overtime, I was racing down the ice towards the ring, circling around the net and I caught an edge and went shoulder first into the boards. As I was skating back to the bench I noticed a bone sticking out of the top of my shoulder that doesn’t usually do so. My first thought was dislocated shoulder. Luckily, my mom and my husband were watching the game and they quickly shuttled me to the emergency department. I made it into a room quickly….apparently the crying and hyperventilation speeds things up a little. Long story short, I have a Grade 4 AC (clavicle) dislocation. Which means I can no longer dress myself, brush my teeth properly or effectively wash my hair. So in other words I had a team of people help bake, photograph and blog about these unbelievable muffins (Big shout out to:  Sam, Steph, Karly, my husband and my mom). And in case you are wondering, we won in a shoot out (that makes the injury slightly more bearable).

Now let’s talk about these amazing muffins. Our Chickie Dough feature flavor this month was Almond Roca and I had a slight obsession with it, which is why I wanted to immortalize them in a muffin. These muffins are special for a few reasons: they are made with chickpeas, have a combo of oil, avocado and greek yogurt as the fat source and they taste totally indulgent and fudgy. I’ve tried making these with splenda and brown sugar and the version with brown sugar are a thousand times better, so I wouldn’t suggest subbing this ingredient out. And here we go.

Ingredients:

1 can of chickpeas (drained and rinsed)
2 eggs
1/4 cup canola oil
1/4 cup plain greek yogurt
1/2 avocado
3/4 teaspoon almond extract
1/2 cup almond flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1/4 cup skor bits
Chopped almonds

Instructions:

• Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. and prepare your muffin tin.
• Add the first 6 ingredients into a blender or food processor and mix until smooth.
• In a separate bowl, combine the next 5 ingredients.
• Add the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix well (I used my mixer for this step).
• Add the skor bits and mix to combine.
• Scoop batter evenly into muffin tin and top with chopped almonds (my almonds were pre-roasted).
• Bake muffins for 35 minutes or until knife comes out clean.

Enjoy!

Makes 12 Muffins
Nutrition Facts (1 Muffin): 190 calories, 8 grams fat, 1 gram saturated fat, 0.1 gram trans fat, 32 mg cholesterol, 157 mg sodium, 26 grams carbs, 3 grams fibre, 10 grams sugar, 6 grams protein.