Chocolate and nut muffins

Typically I like my muffins light and fluffy with a crispy top, but there are times when I crave something dense and packed with delicious. Something that feels wicked in a way a light muffin never could. I think for those times I found the perfect recipe.

The recipe for these muffins was originally meant for a loaf tin, but mid-way through making I realised I didn't actually own a loaf tin. I know most people check these things before they start a recipe but, hey, I thought I owned one and the recipe calls for 10 minutes of beating so I figured I could grease and line the pan then.

Not owning a loaf pan didn't strike me as a big deal, I figured I could just make muffins instead... Then I realised I don't own a muffin pan either. Seriously, what kind of kitchen do I have? Fortunately, I do own a lot of dariole tins so I figured they would do, unfortunately they don't fit any of my cute muffin papers. Muffins without cute papers wrapping their bases taste the same but they're nowhere near as cute. So I vowed to buy a muffin tin, which I haven't done yet and probably won't do.

Not one to be deterred by a lack of appropriate equipment I decided to pucker on and boy was it worth it. These are chocolate and nut central. Yum yum.

If you do own the right equipment you can of course make this in a load pan. According to the recipe you'll need a 22cm x 12 cm (9" x 5") loaf pan and you'll need to bake the load for 60-70 minutes rather than 30-40.

Chocolate and nut muffins

• 210g (1 1/3 cups) all-purpose flour
• 7 tablespoons Dutch-processed cocoa powder
• 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 130 (2/3 cup) sugar
• 140g (5 ounces) almond paste
• 4 large eggs
• 2/3 cup milk
• 65g (1/3 cup) almonds, blanched and chopped
• 70g (1/3 cup) pecans, toasted and chopped
• 55g (1/3 cup) walnuts, chopped
• 85g (3 ounces) bittersweet chocolate, chopped into small chunks
• 185g (6 1/2 ounces) unsalted butter, melted and cooled

Centre an oven rack and preheat the oven to 180°C (250°F). Grease or line 12 standard muffin cups.

Sift together the flour, cocoa powder, and baking powder.

Put the sugar and almond paste in a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and beat on medium speed until the almond paste breaks up and mixes with the sugar; it would resemble damp sand. Add the eggs one at a time, beating for about 2 minutes after each addition.

Replace the paddle attachment the paddle with the whisk attachment, increase the speed to high, and beat for 8-10 minutes, until the ingredients have formed an emulsion - the batter should resemble mayonnaise and the whisk will leave tracks.

Reduce the mixer speed to low and add the milk, mix until combine, and then add the dry ingredients. Continue mixing until everything is combined.

Working with a rubber spatula, fold in almonds, followed by the pecans, walnuts, and chocolate. Lastly, gently fold in the melted butter.

Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin tin. Bake for 30-40 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.

Remove the muffins from the oven and let the cakes cool in the tin for 10 minutes before unmolding. Remove the muffins from the tins and cool to room temperature. The muffins can be served the same day, or wrapped in plastic wrap and allowed to 'ripen' for a day before serving.

Raspberry & rhubarb breakfast muffins

I'm sorry little blog, you've been neglected. Life called and I left you alone and un-updated for far too long. But now I'm back, in a new tiny unit that has a kitchen that is half the size of my previous one and is just as old. Still, it's all good. A place to live is a place to live. The kitchen might not be great, but the oven turns on and that's enough to keep me happy.

Anyway, when you're in the middle of unpacking there's not much time to make something fancy. This is especially the case when half your things are still in boxes and there aren't any fancy implements within arm's reach. When I made these muffins I hadn't even unpacked my muffin tray. luckily I had unpacked my favourite muffin papers and a single baking tray. I love these muffin papers because you don't need to put them into a muffin tin, you just place them on a tray and away you go. One less thing to clean, especially when you no longer have a dishwasher. I also had a few bowls unpacked, a couple of gadgets but no whisk or stand mixer. I also had a insatiable desire for muffins and was immensely curious as to whether or not the oven actually worked. Luckily, muffins only require a few bowls, and a spatula - hooray!

These muffins are super simple and delicious straight out of the oven. With a muffin in hand unpacking seems a whole bunch more approachable.

Raspberry & rhubarb breakfast muffins

(adapted from The Art & Soul of Baking)
makes 9-12 standard muffins

285g (2 cups) unbleached plain flour
135g (2/3 cup) sugar, plus 1 tablespoon sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
Pinch of salt
85g (3 ounces) butter
Finely grated lemon zest
125ml (1/2 cup) milk
65ml (1/4 cup) yoghurt
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup frozen raspberries
1/2 cup finely chopped rhubarb
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Pinch of freshly ground nutmeg

Preheat oven to 200°C (400°F) and position an oven rack in the centre. Place 12 muffin papers in a muffin tin, or 9 self-standing papers on a baking tray.

Place the flour, 2/3 cup of the sugar, the baking powder, and salt in a large bowl and stir thoroughly.

In a medium fry-pan, melt the butter with the lemon zest. Turn off the heat. Add the milk and yoghurt and let the mixture stand for a minute or two. Pour the milk into a medium bowl, add the eggs and vanilla and whisk until well blended.

Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients. Pour the milk mixture into the well and stir well with a spatula. Mix only until there are no streaks and the batter looks fairly smooth. A few lumps scattered throughout are fine. Gently fold through the raspberries and the rhubarb.

Divide the batter between the muffin cups. Stir together the remaining 1 tablespoon of sugar, cinnamon, and ground nutmeg and sprinkle over the tops of the muffins.

Bake for 18-20 minutes, or until the tops feel firm and a skewer inserted into the centres comes out clean. Transfer the muffin tin to a rack a let cool for 5 minutes. Then, remove the muffins from the tin and cool on a wire rack. Serve warm or at room temperature.

White chocolate & blueberry muffins

Stress baking can take two forms. When you stress bake you can either make something super complicated and inevitably mess it up a lot, or you can make something incredibly simple and mess it up but only a little bit. Yesterday I opted for the latter - what I ended up with were these muffins which, despite my small mishap, are delicious and fill some kind of void in my stomach.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who stress bakes (or cleans, or sews.) Stress baking helps to take my mind off whatever is causing the stress. And I end up with something to eat too - something that too often gets forgotten when I'm stressed or worried. We all have bad habits.

Stress baking is the same as nervous baking, which is the same as worry baking. They're all caused by different things but the result is essentially the same. Regardless of what brings on the kitchen frenzy, the result is always something tasty with something ever so slightly wrong with it. I do all these kinds of baking but mostly I do 'for fun' baking.

Truthfully, I wasn't stress baking at all yesterday. I was nervous/excited baking. Nervous baking is better than nervous giggling because no one else knows you're doing it.

What do you know when you're stressed or nervous about something?

So, this recipe is incredibly simple and will probably become one of my go to recipes when I need something quick and easy. When I made mine I accidentally doubled the oil, the recipe I've included has the correct amount of oil. If you do, for some reason, put in twice as much oil, don't worry, your muffins will be fine.

(Also, yesterday was my birthday which would make me 22 now. I'm currently making an awesome mousse cake - expect pictures!)

White chocolate & blueberry muffins

(adapted from Simple Essentials: Chocolate by Donna Hay)
makes 9 small muffins

150g (1 cup) self-raising flour, sifted
80g (1/3 cup) caster sugar
125ml (1/2 cup) sour cream
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest
30ml (1/8 cup) vegetable oil
125ml (1/2 cup) milk
1 cup frozen blueberries
1/2 cup chopped white chocolate

Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F). Line 10 standard (125ml, approx) muffin cups with papers.

Place the flour and sugar into a bowl and mix to combine. Combine the sour cream, egg, lemon zest, vegetable oil, and milk in a separate bowl and whisk together. Stir the sour cream mixture into the flour mixture until just combined. Fold through the blueberries and white chocolate.

Spoon the batter into the muffin tins, then bake for 25-30 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre of a muffin comes out clean.

Dark chocolate & raspberry muffins

Muffins are hard to photograph. They're not inherently pretty in the same way layered cakes, individual tarts, and cupcakes are. Muffins are kind of messy and don't have a singular defining visual feature - or at least mine don't.

Nevertheless, what they lack in visual beauty they often make up for in taste.These muffins aren't elegant or stunning but they are amazingly tasty. They're packed full of raspberries and chocolate, two things that never fail disappoint me.

When I making these I honestly doubted that I would be able to fit all the raspberries in but I could and I did. Each muffin has around eight raspberries and a whole bunch of chocolate. Eight doesn't sound like that many raspberries but bear in mind that these are cooked in a standard muffin tin.

I used demerara sugar to sand the tops of these though, if you don't have any on hand, you can use raw sugar as suggested by the original recipe. I prefer the taste of demerara sugar and I think the large grains are quite beautiful. My muffins had quite a crisp top, I imagine raw sugar would give a similiar texture.

Truthfully, I don't really have much else to say about these muffins. They speak for them-self.

Dark chocolate & raspberry muffins

(adapted from Bourke Street Bakery by Paul Allam & David McGuinness)
makes 10 standard muffins

265g (1 + 3/4 cups) plain flour
1 + 1/3 teaspoons baking powder
200g (1 cup) caster sugar
205 (7.2 oz) butter
320ml (1 + 1/3 cups) buttermilk
2 eggs
150g (5 oz) dark chocolate, roughly chopped
140g (5 oz) raspberries, fresh or frozen
55g (1/4 cup) demerara sugar

Preheat the oven to 190°C (375°F). Line a 12-hole standard muffin tin with paper cases.

Place the flour, baking powder, and sugar in a bowl and whisk well to combine.

Melt the butter in a small saucepan over a low heat, then remove from the heat and stir in the buttermilk. Using a whisk, stir in the eggs, one at a time, whisking to combine. Pour the buttermilk mixture over the dry ingredients and whisk to combine, using a large spoon, gently fold through the chocolate.

Using a 1/4 cup spoon mixture into prepared muffin tins. Cover each muffin with raspberries, pressing them into the batter slightly. Spoon remaining batter over the raspberries. Sprinkle the tops with demerara sugar.

Reduce the oven temperature to 180°C (350°F) and bake for 25-30 minutes or until the muffins are well risen and firm.

Remove muffins from the oven and allow to cool for 10 minutes before eating. Muffins are best served warm.

Lemon blueberry muffins

Today I really wanted to make something but blueberry muffins were not that something.  Instead I had a hankering for apple muffins with some kind of nuts.  I found a recipe for apple pecan muffins and began, I got all my ingredients out and began to make applesauce.  Midway through I realised I didn't have any pecans, "oh well," I thought, "I'll just use walnuts".  I hunted for about half an hour mumbling about how I knew there were walnuts somewhere and eventually gave up accepting that there were no walnuts.

The trouble is, I still wanted to cook.  I could easily have made apple cake, or apple pie, or apple crumble but I didn't want any of those.  So, I scrapped my apple plans and went with lemon blueberry muffins.  Not quite what I wanted but still pretty good!

Lemon blueberry muffins

(adapted from The Joy of Vegan Baking)
makes 12 standard muffins and 6 texas muffins

2 cups (250g) plain flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
zest of 2 lemons
3/4 cup (150g) sugar
1 cup milk
1/3 cup canola oil
1 teaspoon lemon extract
1 tablespoon white vinegar
1 1/2 cups (220g) frozen blueberries

Preheat oven to 200°C (400°F), lightly grease or line muffin tins with papers.
In a medium bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, salt and, and lemon zest. Set aside 2 tablespoons of dry ingredients in a small bowl, you will use this later.

Combine Sugar, milk, oil, lemon extract, and vinegar in a large bowl.

Combine the 2 tablespoons of dry ingredients with the blueberries. Coat lightly.

Add the remaining dry ingredients to the wet, stir until just combined. Gently fold in the blueberries, stir approximately 3 times. Anymore and your blueberries will start to thaw and the juices will spread into the mixture.

Using a 1/3 cup fill the muffin tins 2/3 full. Bake for 20 minutes or until the muffin tops are lightly brown and a skewer comes out clean. Remove from the oven and cool in tins for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack.