Chocolate Muffins Recipe

Recipe repost. This was originally posted in February 2010.

I'm jumping on the Valentine's Day bandwagon here. I must admit it's not a holiday that we celebrate, really. Though Valentine's Day/Friends' Day has become increasingly popular amongst the younger generation here in Estonia, I was out of high school way before that trend began here. But it's a good excuse to bake some chocolate muffins and decorate them with heart-shaped sprinklers :)

When I started looking for a good chocolate muffin recipe, I realised that the choice was endless. Instead I took my excellent rhubarb muffin recipe, replaced the rhubarb with chopped dark chocolate and added some cocoa powder for extra colour and deeper chocolate flavour. The muffins have a very low fat content, as most of the butter has been replaced with yogurt/sour cream - resulting in moist muffins with a nice crumb. I loved them!

Chocolate Muffins
(Mõnusad šokolaadimuffinid)
Makes 12 smaller muffins

2 large free-range eggs
125 soft brown sugar
135 g plain flour
3 Tbsp cocoa powder
1 tsp baking powder
2 tsp vanilla sugar
150 g plain yogurt or sour cream
50 g butter, melted
100 g coarsely chopped dark chocolate

Whisk eggs and sugar until light and frothy.
Sieve flour, cocoa, baking powder and vanilla sugar into a bowl, stir to combine.
Fold the dry ingredients, yogurt/sour cream and cooled melted butter into the egg and sugar mixture.
Finally add the chopped chocolate.
Spoon the batter into muffin tins that have been lined with paper cups. Sprinkle with heart-shaped sugar sprinklers*, if you feel like :)



Bake in the middle of a pre-heated 200 C/400 F oven for 15-20 minutes, until the muffins are cooked and have risen nicely.

* I used some from Finnish company MEIRA - I liked how the baked into the muffins. No need for a frosting to keep them in place :)