Deep Dark Chocolate Chunk Muffins

.  So I have a couple of chocolate posts coming up, this one included.  My initial thought was that these would be great recipes for Valentine's Day but...that obviously didn't quite work out.  So what I've done [in my mind] is expanded Valentine's Day chocolate-inspired recipes into the full month of February, just so that I can say I had a legit excuse for going cocoa overboard.  Hopefully I can knock these posts out by the end of the week!

And speaking of chocolate overload, these muffins are nothing short of that.  Seriously.  Chocolate, chocolate, and more chocolate is all I can conjure up to describe these lovely breakfast treats.  And I say 'breakfast' because let's be real, mini chocolate cakes jam packed with chocolate chunks probably isn't what the dietician is referencing when they say we should start our day with a well rounded meal.

But at the time I made these, my only thoughts were Valentine's Day and who wouldn't want to wake up to a chocolate surprise on that lovey dovey day?  I think we'd all sacrifice our morning routine to indulge in [seriously] moist, gooey, outrageously chocolate muffins [even after they're cooled, the chocolate chunks remain gooey.  I don't know this works?!].  And if not, you've got a problem.

...just kidding...

But who's to say you can't make these for a Saturday morning breakfast?  Or better yet, whip some up tonight [they're easy peasy] for breakfast treats for the coming week.  Your family will thank you each and every morning as they're chomping into these decadent, unique muffins.  Ba-lieve me!

Happy baking!  .

My Notes:

• When I say these muffins are moist, I mean it.  The ingredients are pretty unique from other muffin recipes I've made in that this recipe incorporates both cream cheese and sour cream.  How could you not get a moist muffin out of that?!
• You're free to use chocolate chips or chocolate chunks,  but I would recommend the chunks because the pieces poke out of the top of the muffins making them pretty, pretty!
• The original directions said the recipe only yielded between 9 to 12 muffins but even with packing my muffins cups with batter, I managed to get 18 muffins.  And don't be shy when putting the batter in the cups, it will look like they're overloaded but the muffins don't rise terribly much and you want a big muffin top anyway.

From A Passion for Baking

Ingredients:

Dark Chocolate Muffins:

1/2 c. unsalted butter, softened

4 oz. cream cheese, softened

2/3 c. sugar

1/2 c. firmly packed light brown sugar

2 large eggs

2 tsp. vanilla extract

1/2 c. sour cream

1/2 c. milk

2-1/2 c. all purpose flour

1/2 c. cocoa powder

2-1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/4 tsp. salt

1 scant c. semisweet chocolate chunks or chips

Garnish:

Powdered sugar (optional)

Directions:

1. Heat oven to 350°F.  Place oven rack in center of oven.  Line a 12-cup muffin pan with paper liners; set aside.
2. In a large bowl, cream butter until smooth.  Add cream cheese and beat together with butter until smooth.  Blend in sugar and light brown sugar until light and fluffy.  Add eggs and vanilla extract and blend well.  Fold in sour cream and milk.
3. In a medium bowl, blend together flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.  Fold the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients, making sure no ingredients remain unblended.  Fold in chocolate chunks.
4. Using a large scoop, scoop generous amounts of batter into each muffin cup.  Place a couple of chocolate chunks in the tops of each muffin.  
5. Bake 28 to 32 minutes or until muffins spring back when gently pressed.  Let cool 5 minutes before removing from pan.  When cooled, dust with powdered sugar, if desired.

Yield: 18 muffins

Butterscotch 'n' Cream Muffins

.  Hey-o!

How was every one's Fourth of July?  Ours was pretty relaxing, we spent the day at the pool with the puppies, went out for a little dinner and fro-yo downtown, and then Robbie and I walked around our neighborhood creepin' on people lighting fireworks.  What's a Fourth of July without fireworks, right?!

I do have to admit though, that this year's Fourth of July was a bit of a dud due to the whole midweek thing.  Did anyone else feel like it was a Monday, the day after the Fourth?  But what made me feel better was when I realized at some point during the day that it was already Thursday.  And Friday always comes after Thursday.  Score.

So to send you off into the weekend the right way, and this is perfect for those of you who may have some guests for the 'holiday' weekend, I give you....

Butterscotch 'n' Cream Muffins.

This recipe comes from my yet-to-be-trumped favorite book, A Passion for Baking by Marcy Goldman.  I've mentioned this book several times on LSM and I'll continue to do so until you buy it.  So I guess you have control of how many times I bombard you with those links ☺

Anywho, back to these muffins.  Or breakfast cupcakes.  You know, they're you're basic cream cheese filled, crunchy pecan streusel topping muffin.  Pretty typical...

Or not.  I absolutely love these muffins, and to my surprise they weren't as overly sweet as I had thought going in.  Though they do have a generous helping of crunchy brown sugar and pecan streusel atop a lovely layer of cream cheese filling, the soft, tender, yet subtle cake rounds out this goodie perfectly.  And also gives us an excuse to shove our faces full to share this treat with our family and friends in the early morning.

Well I hope everyone is having a wonderful 'holiday' weekend thus far.  I'll be spending mine relaxing around the house with the pups.  They're totally not spoiled.

See you next week!  .

My Notes:

• Don't be intimidated by the longer ingredient list, this ENTIRE recipe is made in the food processor so it makes for easy clean up and no mixing!

Adapted from A Passion for Baking

Ingredients:

Pecan Streusel Topping:

1 c. finely chopped pecans

2 tbsp. sugar

1/2 c. firmly packed brown sugar

3 tbsp. butterscotch chips

2 tbsp. unsalted butter, cut into chunks

Cream Cheese Topping:

6 oz. cream cheese, softened

1 large egg

1/4 c. sugar

1 tsp. vanilla extract

Muffins:

1/2 c. unsalted butter, softened

1 c. firmly packed brown sugar

1/2 c. sugar

1 large egg

2 tsp. vanilla extract

1 c. buttermilk

2 c. all purpose flour

2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/4 tsp. salt

1/3 c. finely chopped pecans

Directions:

1. Heat oven to 375°F.  Line a regular-sized muffin pan with paper liners and spray liners with non stick cooking spray.  Set aside.
2. For streusel topping, place pecans, sugar, brown sugar, and butterscotch chips in food processor and grind to a fine meal.  Add butter and pulse to blend.  Place streusel into a bowl; set aside.
3. Without cleaning the food processor, blend together cream cheese, egg, sugar, and vanilla extract until smooth and place into another bowl.  Set aside.
4. For muffins, blend butter, brown sugar and sugar in food processor until well combined.  Add egg and vanilla extract and mix well.  Add buttermilk, flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and pecans and blend well (make sure no unblended sugar or butter is stuck on the bottom of the bowl).
5. Fill muffin cups about half full with batter.  Evenly divide cream cheese topping into each cup and then carefully add streusel.
6. Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until muffins seem firm to the touch when gently pressed with fingertips.  Cool 5 minutes in pan before removing.

Serving: 1 dozen muffins

Jumbo Upside-Down Peach Muffins

. Ever have one of those days when you know you should probably just try to get through it and not attempt anything new?  Like throughout the entire day, little things keep happening that makes you go 'whoa', let's try to climb out of bed a different way and start this day over.  Well when I made these [jumbo] peach cakes last week, which were originally upside-down muffins, I was having this kind of day.  But my stubborn self decided to make these anyway...and I'm SURE glad I did!

However, I will say that the aforementioned weird day creeped right into my nighttime baking sesh (e.g., I forgot to melt the shortening and so I ended up with a nice chunky batter, see pictures below!).  But magically, these little baby cakes came together and they were absolute heaven on a plate.  Oh yes, I did just say that.

The cakes themselves are wonderfully sweet and have that muffiny-cakey texture.  The peaches add their wonderful flavor as well and offer up their juices to the cake, which makes them even more moist.  But the kicker is a simple mixture of butter and brown sugar placed at the bottom of the pan [which ends up being the tops after all is said and done].  This little concoction slightly caramelizes during baking and who can say anything bad about that?  ...YUM...!

As I mentioned before, the original recipe was for muffins.  But I decided that we didn't need 18 muffins sitting around the house, so I chose to whip out my favorite large muffin pan and try a little experimenting.  Also, I struggle with calling these muffins because they are a tad on the sweet side.  Of course they would be a lovely, indulgent treat for breakfast but they are just as wonderful throughout the rest of the day.  But isn't any treat?! .

My Notes:

• Since I was kind of making this goodie ad hoc, I had to guess as to what combination of topping ingredients would be the best.  So the recipe below is what I did but I've also included the link to the original recipe if you would like to make regular-sized muffins.
• The peaches I grabbed at the grocery store weren't extremely ripe but don't worry.  Like my Nectarine 'Sconecakes', the sugar in the topping brings out the sweetness in the peaches, so all is well.
• I ran out of light brown sugar [another omen that I probably shouldn't have been baking!] so I opted to use dark brown sugar for half of the muffins.  So in the pictures below, the dark muffins aren't rotten, it's just the dark brown sugar!  And as for taste, I really couldn't tell much of a difference, so using either is perfectly fine.

  Jumbo Upside-Down Peach Muffins

Adapted from AllRecipes.com

Ingredients:

2 c. all purpose flour

1-1/2 c. sugar

1 tbsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

1/4 c. shortening, melted

2 eggs, lightly beaten

1 c. milk

6 tbsp. butter, cut into single tablespoons

 12 tbsp. packed light brown sugar

3 c. peeled, sliced peaches

Directions:

1.  Heat oven to 375°F.  In mixing bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt.

2.  Add shortening, eggs, and milk.  Mix until smooth.

3.  In the bottom of a six-cup large muffin pan, place two tablespoons light brown sugar and one tablespoon of butter.  

4.  Place in oven for 5 minutes.  

5.  Arrange peach slices in the muffin cups.  

I originally only put in 1/2 tablespoon of butter but that was clearly not enough, so above is the second 1/2 tablespoon of butter I used.

6.  Fill each cup with batter until almost full (a little over 3/4 full).  

7.  Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until browned.  Turn out cakes immediately to wire rack to cool.

Yield: 6 jumbo muffins

Tried & True Tuesday: French Breakfast Puffs

. Easter is JUST around the corner (i.e., a month away...but so what!) and if you're like [crazy] me, you've already begun to plan what you'll be having for that weekend.  There's a great possibility that my family will be visiting from Minnesota and we all know how their last holiday visit went (cough, my dad claims he lost weight due to the lack of food in my house, cough).  So I'm sure as ever not going to let that happen again!

As I mentioned, my mind has already begun reeling about all of the goodies I [hopefully] would like to bake, mainly covering breakfast and dessert.  I guess they'll have to fend for themselves when it comes to the other meals.  Sorry dad, I can only do so much ☺  But I definitely want to have things around the house my family can snack on [instead of apparently starving], which brought me to one of my favorite recipes that was given to me by my lovely mother, French Breakfast Puffs.  I truthfully can't even tell you where she got this recipe, but all I know is that I fell in love with these the very first time she ever made them!

These little creations are oh, so simple yet crazily slightly addictive.  They're basically a small puff [obviously] of doughnutty-textured-delicately-spiced cake with a kiss of butter on top and rolled in a delicious mixture of cinnamon and sugar.  See.  Simple, huh?!  I just imagine these sitting on the counter throughout the weekend, their numbers slowly dwindling as the hours days pass by.  Perfect as a morning breakfast goodie with a steaming hot cup of coffee.  Mm, Mm, Mm!

So here I give you my first of many Easter goodies for you to try out that special weekend...or any other day for that matter!  Bon appetit! .

French Breakfast Puffs

Ingredients:

Muffins:

1 c. sugar

2/3 c. butter

2 eggs

3 c. flour

3 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg

1 c. milk

Cinnamon-Sugar Mixture:

2 tbsp. butter

1/2 c. sugar

1 tsp. ground cinnamon

Directions:

1. Heat oven to 350°F.  Grease regular-sized muffin cups.  
2. In large bowl, cream sugar and butter together (about 3 minutes).  Add eggs and beat to combine.
3. Sift together flour, baking powder, salt, and nutmeg.  Add dry ingredients to creamed mixture alternately with milk, beating well after each addition.
4. Spoon batter into muffin cups, filling about 2/3 full.  Bake 20 to 25 minutes.
5. With a few minutes left before the muffins are done baking, melt the butter.  Combine the sugar and cinnamon in a shallow bowl.  
6. Remove muffins from oven and immediately dip tops in melted butter and then into the cinnamon-sugar mixture.  Repeat with the remaining muffins.

Yield: 24 muffins

Bread Pudding Muffins

. So I finally made it back to Omaha from Spring, Texas, and I was warmly welcomed by 15°F and snowfall.  [In a highly sarcastic tone] "Oh, it's good to be home!"

As I mentioned in my previous post, I traveled to Spring for work for the week.  What I don't think I've mentioned before is that my boyfriend works for Deloitte & Touche, a large public accounting firm.  Of course, my travel plans happened to fall on the last week of their "busy season."  That fancy little collection of words basically entails their employees working all hours of the night for several weeks and you can bet that we rarely, and I mean rarely, ever saw each other.  Wait, don't we also have three dogs that never got to see their daddy?  Yep, there's the [three] little kinks in my story.  Fortunately, I was able to persuade a great mutual friend of ours to house/puppy-sit for the week.  Seroiusly, thank the LORD he is around.

Aside from [madly] cleaning the house last weekend, I figured a nice little breakfast treat for our knight-in-shining-armor was desperately needed.  If you've ever been to our house, you can vouch for me that we literally do not have any food besides MAYBE some chocolate chips that I used in a previous baking venture (ask my dad who visited for Christmas and claims that he lost 10 lbs. while he was here).  It's sad, and comical at the same time, but I'm working on it.

Anywho, I came across the recipe for Bread Pudding Muffins from JoyofBaking.com a while back.  Another one of my guilty, guilty pleasures?  Bread pudding.  So this fun twist definitely caught my attention.  Instead of baking the bread pudding in a 13x9-inch pan, which is usually the standard way, this recipe separates the mixture in to individual muffin cups.  A beyond perfect breakfast item for people on the go or just a quick snack in the afternoon.

The bread pudding itself is filled with luscious bread, cranberries (or raisins, your choice!), and chunks of apple.  Another great thing about these that I found is that the longer they are able to sit, the more flavorful they become.  So making them ahead of time is actually recommended and that always makes life a little easier, doesn't it?

MmMmmMm.  I ALSO recommend that you go make these right now.  Whether they're for breakfast, lunch, or dessert, everyone will thank you!  Happy baking! .

Bread Pudding Muffins

Ingredients:

7 c. bread cubes, cut into bite-sized pieces

1 c. half & half or light cream

1 c. milk

4 eggs, lightly beaten

2/3 c. sugar

2 tsp. vanilla extract

6 tbsp. unsalted butter, melted and cooled

1/3 c. all purpose flour

1/2 tbsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon

1 tbsp. grated lemon zest

1/2 c. raisins or dried cranberries

1 small apple, peeled, cored and diced

Directions:

1.  Heat oven to 350°F.  Place rack in middle of oven.  Butter or spray with nonstick vegetable spray 12 muffin cups.

2.  Place bread cubes in large bowl and add cream and milk.  Let stand 5 minutes.  Stir in beaten eggs, sugar, vanilla extract, and butter.

3.  In separate bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt, ground cinnamon, and lemon zest.  Stir dried ingredients into bread mixture and then fold in raisins and apple chunks.

4.  Evenly divide mixture among muffins cups.  Bake 25 to 30 minutes or until golden brown and toothpick comes out clean.  Place on wire rack to cool.  Dust with powdered sugar before serving.

Yield: 12 muffins

*My Notes:

• If you've made bread pudding before, most recipes call for stale bread.  Knowing this, I let the bread (I used a loaf of challah from Trader Joe's, by the way) sit out for a day.  However, I DON'T recommend doing that for this treat.  My muffins turned out a tad dry at first (they got better as the days went on, as I mentioned they would) and I'm almost certain it's because the dry bread soaked up all of the liquid.
• When you mix the bread with the cream and milk, I would put the ingredients into a 13x9 pan and press down slightly to get the wet ingredients entirely over the bread (and keep the mixture in the pan the entire time until you're ready to put it in the muffin cups).  I initially did this step in a bowl and the constant folding to combine the milk and bread tore up the bread just a bit.  
• I used cranberries and a small Pink Lady Apple (my personal favorite) this time around.  The tartness of the cranberries with the sweetness of the apple was just...good!

Lemon-Yogurt-Poppy Seed Muffins

. It's kind of ironic how on Tuesday I felt like complaining about not having time during the week to bake and what do you know, somehow extra hours found themselves creeping into my night! Well, not exactly.  I would say I kind of forced the issue but I managed.

It's been a little stressful at work, so I felt a deep obligation to bring some kind of goodie in to lift every one's spirits (just kidding, they don't really do that but it's a great rationalization to bake, right?!).  Since I'm sure there's been an overload of chocolate lately (wait, is that even possible?) since Valentine's Day just passed, I wanted to try out something a little "lighter" in flavor.  But what to do, what to do?

Ah, ha!  Lemon.  Fresh, cheery, and perfect for this 60°F weather we've been having (oh, believe it!  I live in Omaha, NE and it has been in the 60s this past week, people don't know how to act without their winter jackets!).  Taking a recipe from my go-to baker, Marcy Goldman and her book A Passion for Baking, I decided to go breakfasty and test out Lemon-Yogurt-Poppy Seed Muffins.  Quite honestly, I don't even think I've ever purchased a poppy seed muffin let alone made anything with poppy seeds.  The first thought that popped into my head was "where do you even buy poppy seeds?!"  Sad, I know.

These muffins are very good: super moist, fantastic lemony flavor, and wonderful to wake up to in the morning.  HOWEVER, I have to admit that I think the whole lemon/poppy seed thing is just not for me.  Yes, I devoured one [or two] of these muffins, but I finally came to terms that I'm a chocolate connoisseur through and through.  But hey, it's not all about me and my favorites!  I want to share a variety of goodies that will interest everyone and these are definitely worth sharing!  And don't take my prior comment the wrong way, I truthfully can't say anything bad about these muffins, they are scrumptious!  Let me demonstrate: 18 muffins arrived at our office today at 8:00 A.M.  By 9:09 A.M., there were three left (I wandered to the bathroom at this time and snuck a peek at the plate).  At exactly 10:00 A.M., my co-worker brought to my desk the empty platter.  And this was without any announcement that something had been brought in!  That has to say something about the quality of this treat.

So just in time for the weekend and breakfast with your honey, I give you Lemon-Yogurt-Poppy Seed Muffins .

Lemon-Yogurt-Poppy Seed Muffins

Ingredients:

Muffin:

1/2 c. unsalted butter, softened

1-1/2 c. sugar

2 large eggs

2 tsp. vanilla extract

Juice of 1 lemon

Zest of 1 lemon

1 tsp. lemon extract

1 c. plain yogurt

2-1/4 to 2-1/2 c. all purpose flour

2-1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/4 tsp. salt

2 to 4 tbsp. poppy seeds

Lemon Syrup:

3/4 c. water

1/4 c. lemon juice

1 tsp. lemon extract

1 c. sugar

Directions:

1.  Heat oven 375°F.  Arrange oven rack to middle position.  Line large 12-cup muffin pan with liners.

2.  In mixer bowl, cream butter and sugar.  Blend in eggs, vanilla extract, lemon juice, lemon zest, lemon extract, and yogurt.  Blend well; fold in flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and poppy seeds.

3.  Scoop generous amount of batter into muffin cups (load cups full; batter should stay in place.  If it topples over, add more flour to remaining batter.)

*And here is where I must interject!  For my first batch of muffins, I followed the directions precisely, loading the cups with almost all of the batter since it says it only makes a dozen muffins.  However, I had a little overflow issue (see two pictures below) and I pretty much ended up with square muffin tops.  SO, I tried the recipe a second time, only filling the cups about 3/4 full, which resulted in the muffins two pictures above.  If appearance doesn't interest you much and you love muffin tops, then go with the original recipe.  Or if you're like me and want more petite muffins, follow my instructions.  Okay, continue...

4.  Bake 28 to 32 minutes or until nicely browned around edges and muffins are set.

Plush, but square!

5.  For syrup, simmer water, lemon juice, lemon extract, and sugar over low heat for 5 minutes.  Cool well.

6.  Brush baked muffins 2 or 3 times with syrup while still warm.  Let cool 5 minutes before removing from pan.

Yield: 12 muffins

*My Notes:

• To zest a lemon, you're going to need a microplane.  Truthfully, this is one of my FAVORITE baking tools.  I can't explain it, but I just love this thing ☺  If you don't own a microplane, use another grater, but make sure to finely mince the zest so you don't have large chunks of lemon rind in the batter.
• In order to get the maximum amount of juice out of your lemon, roll the lemon on the counter a few times.  This releases some of the juices so you'll get the most out of your produce.
• I used 3 tbsp. of poppyseeds and the one critique I got about these muffins was that this might have been just a tad much.  Again, I don't exactly know how poppyseed muffins are expected to taste but next time I will stick to only 2 tbsp.
• As I mentioned above, I only filled the cups about 3/4 full the second go-around.  This resulted in a smaller muffin without tops and made exactly 18 muffins.  If you're a muffin top lover, don't use my suggestions.  But to also avoid getting square tops, don't overload the cups either.  Somewhere in between will work nicely!