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Sunday, 25 April 2010

Apple & Chocolate Drops Muffins

This recipe is another offspring of yesterday's pic-nic catering requirements. My boyfriend being a (very) sweet tooth I wanted to take some sort of pudding to finish off the meal and to accompany our flask of freshly made hot espresso coffee - yes, coffee at a BBQ! It's another Italian tradition, in case you were wondering :-) Muffins immediately came to mind, once again for their portability and their individual-sized portions. My glance fell upon a few small, sweet Golden Gala apples I had bought to keep in the house for snacking, and since I love the combination chocolate+apple, here's how these muffins were born.

INGREDIENTS (makes 12 muffins)

  • 260 gr plain flour
  • 1 tbs of baking powder
  • A pinch of salt
  • 70 gr of cane sugar (I used light Muscovado)
  • 1 tsp of ground cinnamon
  • 100 gr of good quality chocolate (I used Lindt's 'milk and crunchy caramel')
  • 2 free range/organic eggs
  • 180 gr milk
  • 60 gr of butter (melted)
  • 4 small apples (or 3 medium ones)
  • 12 muffins cases 
  • A muffin tray will make your life easier but it's not essential
Place all the dry ingredients in a bowl (flour, baking powder, salt, sugar, cinnamon) and mix them well. In another bowl, whisk together the eggs, butter and milk and pour them in the dry ingredients' bowl, mixing them all together. The mixture will be thick and quite hard to stir, but don't worry, this is how it is supposed to be. Add one grated apple, three diced apples (obviously all of them will have been cored and peeled) and the chocolate, chopped in small bits.
Carefully spoon the batter in the muffin cases and bake them in the oven, pre-heated at 180°C, for about 20 - 25 minutes, or until they are golden. Inserting the toothpick in the muffins to check if they are done won't necessarily work in this case as the apple will keep them really moist. The smell that comes out of the oven while these are baking is just heavenly! They are also great at breakfast time, with your coffee or cappuccino.

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