Chocolate Chunk Muffins

These are one of the cupcake varieties that I made on Friday night. Given the rate of devourment on Saturday, I'd say they were a success :D

The Recipe
3c plain flour
3T cocoa powder
1T baking powder
1 1/2c brown sugar
200g dark chocolate chips
1 1/2c milk
120g butter, melted
2 eggs, lightly beaten

Sift flour, cocoa and baking powder into a large bowl. Add brown sugar and chocolate. Stir to combine. Make a well in the centre and add the milk, eggs and butter. Fold in until just combined - do not over beat.

Fill muffin pans 1/2 full and bake for 12-15 minutes in a 180C oven.

The Results

Uh, yum! Yes, these are good cupcakes indeed *licks lips*.

Last time I made these cupcakes it was over at my mother's house, for my sister, who wanted to hand out cupcakes as Christmas presents to all her friends. According to the original recipe, they're supposed to be baked for 20-25 minutes. We did this, but at least the mini ones we made turned out very dry and chewy - not particularly nice at all. So I would definitely recommend the shorter cooking time :)

Also, when I got up on Saturday I decided that 26 cupcakes would not be enough. But we'd run out of brown sugar. So, in the second batch I used white sugar instead of brown, and milk chocolate instead of dark.

The ones made with brown sugar and dark chocolate were a lot more chocolatey, and had a slightly fudgier texture. The white sugar and milk chocolate ones were more like a traditional chocolate cake, though because I used drops rather than chips you did get nice mouthfuls of actual chocolate.

This time I didn't ice the cakes, mostly because I ran out of time. However, the first time I experienced these cakes we served them like this:

Serve cakes hot from the oven, or if you're serving them a few days later, heat them before serving. Insert a pair of tongs (closed) gently into the top of the cupcake, and open them about 2cm. Into this hole, insert two squares of caramel-filled chocolate (we had it so one square was in the cake, and one stuck out the top). Cover with home-made chocolate sauce, and enjoy!

This was absolutely delicious, because the heat of the cupcakes melted the chocolate inside them, and when you cut into it you got mouthfuls of gooey chocolate-caramel goodness. Yu-um!

Banana Cupcakes

So, this was my first experiment, sort of by accident. I had some bananas that had been hanging around in the freezer for waaaay too long, and a friend over, so we decided to make cupcakes. I found a recipe, and asked my friend to get out the ingredients while I had a shower.

To my shock, I got out and discovered she'd thrown all the ingredients in a bowl.

Highly amusing learning experience. See, I'd never heard of cake recipes where you just threw everything in together. She was following the recipe perfectly, but seeing it all dumped in a bowl rather freaked me out :) So, we decided to use that as the first experiment - the creaming method, versus the chuck-it-all-in-and-mix-it method.

And, bad girls, we broke the cardinal rule of experimentation and changed more than one variable - we alternated sugars O:)

The Recipe:
1/2 c. butter
1 c. sugar (for alternate two use brown sugar)
1 c. mashed bananas
1 egg, beaten
1 1/2 c. flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1 tsp. vanilla

Alternate one: Mix all ingredients until combined. Fill muffin tins (with or without cupcake liners - I use without - cheaper) 1/2 full. Bake for 15-20 minutes at 180C.

Ice with 3/4 of a container of icing sugar (sorry, real measurement coming soon) mixed with 2-3T melted butter, 1-2T water and 3t of vanilla essence.

Alternate Two: Cream together butter and sugar. Beat in egg & vanilla. Fold through sifted dry ingredients and 100g of chocolate chips. Bake as per option one.

Drizzle melted chocolate over top to finish.

The Results:

Unsurprisingly, the second cupcakes done with the cake method were much lighter and fluffier in texture, though I doubt it would be noticeable to the casual taster.

Oddly, the batter made with the brown sugar was lighter in colour than the batter made with the white sugar, which I found strange.

I must say, what I loved the most about these cupcakes was the gorgeous vanilla icing. It was strongly vanilla, which complemented the banana perfectly, but not overpoweringly. Mm. The dusting of cinnamon on top just clinched it.

The chocolate drizzled over the choc chips ones was great too - the texture of the reset chocolate was great with the lighter texture of the cupcakes.

Overall, tasters were pretty much half and half on this one - some loved the chocolate, and some loved the vanilla :) I'd definitely make these again.