Chocolate muffins for Noé : not fancy (well, just a little bit)
Noé, although he’s only 9 years old, knows exactly how to tease me (just like his dad). A couple of days ago at Ikea, he asked for a chocolate muffin. I think he already knows that I find it hard to buy stuff I can make myself at home, and that I don’t like explaining it, especially when people are around. Buying a macaroon at a very good pastry shop : YES. Buying a muffin: NO!
I told Noé “if you want, I can bake some this afternoon at home” Noé replied with a little smile on his face “yes but not fancy ones, just some with vanilla and chocolate”.
It made me smile.
I was still smiling in my kitchen, when I adapted the recipe from my book “Cookies Muffins et Cie” by replacing the melted butter with some almond puree and vegetable oil, following Clea’s advice in this article.
I thought “not fancy muffins” but just a little bit.
Chocolate muffins
Ingredients for 10 muffins
1 muffin tin with muffin cases
300g self raising flour or
300g flour and 1 packet of baking powder (11g)
125g brown sugar
2 pinch of salt
2 level tbsp of powdered cacao not sweetened.
200g of milk chocolate cut into chunks
25cl milk
2 eggs
75g of melted butter or 40g of almond puree and 35 g of vegetable oil
1tsp of vanilla extract
Optional: small white chocolate drops for the topping
Preheat your oven to 200°C.
Put the muffins cases in your muffin tin.
In a large bowl, mix the self raising flour (or the flour and the baking powder), the sugar, the salt, the powdered cacao and the milk chocolate.
In a jug, break the eggs and beat them slightly. Add the milk, the melted butter or the mixture of almond puree and vegetable oil and the vanilla extract.
Pour this liquid on the dry mixture and mix just enough until the flour is not visible: the batter must be lumpy.
Pour into the muffin cases using a large spoon.
If you wish, you can add some white chocolate drops on the muffins.
Bake for about 20 minutes, until the muffins are rise.
A skewer inserted into the muffin should come out dry.
Remove the muffins cases from the muffin tin and allow to cool on a wired rack.
Noé was happy but he was not the only one.