maybe you’ve seen the “but first, coffee” mugs or shirts or memes or cards.
clearly the concept has resonated with many people. and i am no exception.
i’d like to say my affair with coffee started only after having children and needing the extra oomph in my day. but that would be a lie. i’ve always needed the caffeine boost. and i’ve always loved coffee.
as a matter of fact, it’s not only the hot beverage i love so much, but the whole coffee shop culture.
in college i worked at a great little coffee shop on the corner of campus called, common grounds. that’s where we made those amazing cowboy coffees i posted about a while back. (sidenote: if you are a fixer upper fan, you may have seen the coffee shop in the episode where chip & jojo fixed up a house for the owners. they weren’t my bosses {because i’m just about old enough to be their mother}, but jill, from this episode, was!) i loved the whole scene of people coming together, being still, meeting to talk, reading a book, and sipping their coffee.
i still like to sit at coffee shops. frankly, it is where i go to get work done on the weekends. these days it is a local starbucks, which fits the bill. it’s not got the charm of common grounds or other local, privately owned coffee shops i’ve nuzzled into throughout the years and the places i’ve called home, but it’ll do.
but no one does coffee shops like vienna, austria. it’s pretty safe to say the austrians started it all.
years ago, when we lived in heidelberg and traveled all the time, we found ourselves in vienna. there were so many musts on that trip, but one was to spend as much time as we could in the coffee houses. our favorite was café central, which even declares sigmund freud and peter altenberg as previous patrons.
the coffee houses are exquisite and make my local starbucks look like a back alley. viennese coffee houses are covered in marble and polished brass and gorgeous wood. the servers wear bowties and shined shoes. crystal chandeliers hang from the ceilings. but it’s still coffee. and talking, and reading, and being still.
these grain-free (gluten-free) double chocolate viennese coffee muffins are a little tribute to those coffee houses. it’s no apfelstrudel or sacher torte, but if you ask me there’s not much better pairing with coffee than chocolate.
mix up a batch, grab a friend and a hot steamy cup of coffee. turn off your screens and be.
gotta have these coffee-house inspired #Grainfree Double Chocolate Viennese Coffee Muffins Click To Tweet
Grain-Free Double Chocolate Viennese Coffee Muffins
Ingredients
- 2 cups almond flour
- 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
- 2 tablespoons instant espresso
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon golden flaxmeal
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup organic canola oil
- 4 large eggs
- 3 tablespoons honey
- 2 tablespoons brewed coffee or water
- 2 teaspoons vanilla paste or extract
- 1 cup dark chocolate chips
- turbinado sugar optional
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375°.
- Combine almond flour and next 6 ingredients in a medium bowl.
- Mix together oil, eggs, honey, coffee, and vanilla paste in another medium bowl.
- Add oil mixture to dry ingredients and stir until well-combined. Stir in dark chocolate chips.
- Pour batter into lightly-greased muffins tins to fill 3/4-full.
- Sprinkle tops with a dusting of turbinado sugar, if desired.
- Bake at 375° for about 13 minutes, or until a pick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean.
*very best, warm!
if you like especially tall muffins, like me, fill only 11 of the muffin tins.
