Healthy Triple Chocolate Muffins

Are you ever just in the mood to eat muffins? I feel like I always am--especially around the holidays. I found this recipe for healthy chocolate chip muffins on Pinterest and have been obsessed with it ever since. I LOVE eating muffins--I'll eat any kind.. but when you're watching your calories and what you eat, muffins aren't the greatest--until now. These muffins are amazing--they're so good that you'll *think* they're bad for you, but they aren't! Let's get started:

Ingredients:
1 3/4 cup    oats
3                    egg whites
3/4 cup       unsweetened cocoa
1/2 cup       unsweetened applesauce
1 tsp             vanilla extract
1/2 cup       Plain Greek yogurt (or regular plain low-fat yogurt)
1/2 tsp        cream of tartar (or 2 tsp. vinegar--what I used)
1 1/2 tsp     baking powder
1 1/2 tsp     baking soda
1/4 tsp        salt
1 cup           hot water
1/2 cup      baking stevia (OR 1 cup sweetener of choice that measures like sugar)
1/2 cup      semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a 12-cup muffin pan with foil cupcake liners, or spray muffin pan with non-stick cooking spray. Set aside.

In a blender (or food processor), mix all of the ingredients together, except for the chocolate chips. Blend until oats are ground and mixture is smooth. (I used my Magic Bullet for this. I blended just the oats alone until they were a flour-like texture, then I added the rest of the ingredients).

Place mixture in a bowl and gently stir in 1/2 of the chocolate chips (set the rest aside). Scoop mixture into prepared muffin pans.

Place muffin tins in the oven for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, remove muffins from the oven (but dont turn the oven off!), and distribute the other half of the chocolate chips on each of the muffins. **

Place the muffins back in the oven and bake for an additional 2-5 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.

**Note: you could skip this step by adding all of the chips in the batter and baking the muffins for 12-15 minutes straight, but this method gives the muffins the traditional "VitaTop Muffin" look with the chocolate chips on top!

Cool muffins before removing from pan. ENJOY!

Nutrition Breakdown:
12        Servings (bigger muffins)
95       calories per serving
3 g      Fat
23 g   Carbohydrate
4 g      Fiber
4 g     Sugar
5 g     Protein
3        WWP+*

*Weight Watchers Points per serving