Double Chocolate Muffins

I must have made these Double Chocolate Muffins over 200 times in the past few years! I've tweaked the recipe a little over time and played around with changing flavours, but this is a recipe that I absolutely love. I've made over 200 in the past for a friend's daughter's wedding, and I'm always asked for them by friends and family at any party I attend. I even keep my mechanic sweet by keeping him supplied with them !!

Recipe

10oz plain flour

5oz granulated sugar

1 tbsp baking powder

4 heaped (and I mean heaped) tbsp cocoa - not drinking chocolate

200g chopped dark chocolate (cheaper than chocolate chips and I prefer finding a few large chunks in my muffins!)

8 fl oz milk

2 eggs

4oz butter

Mix all of the dry ingredients together in a large bowl. Melt the butter and combine first with the milk, then with the eggs (to cool the butter a little and prevent scrambling the eggs!). Then carefully mix the wet ingredients with the dry until the batter is only just about ready - never overmix muffin batter as you lose the wonderful texture that you never get with supermarket produced ones.

Fill 12-15 paper muffin cases about two thirds full. If the batter gets a little floury towards the end of the bowl, then add a little milk (a couple of tablespoons) and lightly incorporate it.

Bake at Gas mark 5 for about 20 minutes, checking from 18 minutes onwards to see if they're ready. The tops should be dark and glossy, the bottoms very soft and squidgy - the essence of a good muffin! When they're done, the whole kitchen smells of chocolate :-)

The other muffins in the photo above are Strawberry and White Chocolate. Replace the chopped dark chocolate with chopped white chocolate, and leave out the cocoa powder. Add a punnet of chopped strawberries and sprinkle with demerara sugar before baking as before. The sugar gives a lovely crunch to the cakes.

Happy eating :-)

Clare xx

Millies 'N' McDonalds

Having recently read that you can buy a voucher at Millie's cookies for £35, which entitles you to twelve boxes of twelve cookies (£35 for 144 cookies, I think not) I decided to make our own. The recipe below makes about 15-18 cookies for approximately £1.20.



The Recipe:



Ingredients;

• 3 oz butter (softened)
• 3 0z granulated sugar
• 3 oz muscavado
• 1 tsp of vanilla
• 1 egg
• 6 oz Self Raising flour
• A pinch of salt
• 4 oz of chocolate chips (you can use any chocolate you want. e.g. M&Ms, chopped up chocolate, toffee, fudge etc.)

1. Preheat the oven to Gas Mark 4.
2. Put all of the ingredients, except the chocolate, in a mixer and mix thoroughly.
3. Tip the mixture into a bowl and then mix in whatever chocolate you are using. Stir well. Make sure the chocolate is evenly distributed.
4. Take small amounts of the mixture and roll into approximately golf ball sized balls.
5. Place on a greased baking sheet and make sure that they are evenly spread out. These babies spread out a lot!!
6. Bake for exactly eleven minutes. No more, or no less.
7. Leave to cool on the tray for a couple of minutes then transfer to a wire tray.

Enjoy !!!

Clare xx