Triple Dark Chocolate Muffins: #MuffinMonday

Triple Dark Chocolate Muffins are easy, fast, and intensely chocolate–in the best way possible! Keep reading to see what everyone else made for Muffin Monday. Affiliate links have been used in this post to link to items I am discussing.

These muffins were born of last minute inspiration and a seriously overbooked week. Octobers have always been hectic, but ever since the schools switched to trimesters (this all happened when the Common Core was adopted by Ohio–and while it is true the Common Core is simply a set of standards for each grade, it gets confusing to discuss because so many changes were adopted by various states when they adopted the Common Core… I guess my point is that yes I am complaining, but not precisely about the Common Core), conference week, the Halloween themed Kids Night Out and Sammy’s birthday all hit right around the same week. I always cook and bake for the teachers because they stay into the evening hours to make conferences convenient. I have missed baking for the last two years for this particular Kids Night Out (parents can drop their kid off for 3 hours of fantastically fun mayhem at the school on a Friday night) because of the craziness. And of course then there is Sammy. For whom I bake a birthday dessert for a get together with my family, a get together with John’s family (for the first time ever I failed at that this year), a party with her friends and of course for her class.

Did anyone else get exhausted reading that? Heck who knows, with my state of mind, maybe it wasn’t even coherent!

Anyway, the point being with conferences this year on the actual day of Sammy’s birthday, I completely dropped the ball and did not take any treat to her class on the actual day. Thursday afternoon, when I had nearly despaired of finding the energy to deal with anything, I remembered that Muffin Monday was coming soon.

Sammy! What about a chocolate muffin? No she wanted a cupcake. By which she meant she wanted frosting. OK I literally could have cried at the idea of trying to frost anything, plus I had made cupcakes with frosting just the previous weekend. So we negotiated and bargained (and I begged) and we finally settled on sprinkling M&Ms over the cupcakes.

I knew exactly what I wanted, but I was not exactly sure about the ratio of ingredients after copious cocoa powder had been added to the mix. I went looking through many different baking books, before it occurred to me that Carole Walter has never really let me down. This time was no exception; these muffins started with her “Jeff’s Chocolate-Glazed Midnight Muffins” in Great Coffee Cakes, Sticky Buns, Muffins & More: 200 Anytime Treats and Special Sweets for Morning to Midnight, one of my favorite all time cookbooks. Truly–if you love homey baking, you must own this book!

The verdict? First, these dark chocolate muffins are seriously chocolate-y (that’s a good thing). Second, I want to experiment with using M&M’S Semi-Sweet Chocolate MINIS Baking Bits inside of the cupcakes, because while I loved the texture of the M&Ms, they definitely did not turn out very pretty. Luckily Sammy seemed oblivious. Last, these muffins rock. Let’s face it they are dessert muffins, but they are a heck of a lot easier than frosting cupcakes or creaming butter for cake. I don’t have any pictures, but I especially like the mini muffins I sent to one of John’s classes, just because with that intense chocolate flavor, a few bites definitely was satisfying.

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Triple Dark Chocolate Muffins

Prep Time

20 mins

Cook Time

25 mins

Total Time

45 mins

 

Closely adapted from Carole Walter.

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: Muffins

Servings: 15 muffins

Author: TheSpicedLife

Ingredients

• 1 cup (126 g) AP flour
• 3/4 cup (96 g) white whole wheat flour
• 1 1/4 cups sugar
• 1/2 t baking powder
• 1/2 t baking soda
• 1/4 t fine sea salt
• 1 scant cup miniature chocolate chips
• 2/3 cup cocoa powder—I used Hershey’s Special Dark
• 6 T hot water, plus more as needed
• 1/2 cup full fat sour cream
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil (I used avocado)
• 2 t vanilla
• M&Ms for topping, optional

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 F.
2. Whisk together the flours, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Mix in the chocolate chips and set aside.
3. In a separate bowl, combine the cocoa powder and hot water. Whisk smooth—depending on the humidity at your house, you may need a little more hot water. Add by the scant tablespoon until it whisks smooth.
4. Whisk the sour cream into the cocoa powder and hot water. Then whisk the oil in slowly, whisking as you pour in a drizzle. Whisk until it emulsifies and incorporates completely.
5. Whisk in the eggs, one at a time, and then whisk in the vanilla.
6. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients. Add the wet to the dry and fold them together. Make sure all of the dry is incorporated into the wet—do not overmix, but also do not hesitate to mix to make sure there are no dry pockets (this may have been an issue with me especially because I had tripled the recipe).
7. My experience with muffin recipes is that sometimes they fit the 12-well standard muffin pan perfectly—but often they do not. This time was no exception, as my tripled recipe made 36 standard muffins and 35 mini muffins. So I recommend being prepared with a second pan or some mini loaf pans or whatever it takes.
8. Line the main pan with muffin liners and then lightly spray the insides of the wells and the top of the pan.
9. Place about 1/4 cup of batter in each muffin well. If there is remaining batter, grease another muffin pan or some mini loaf pans, and add the batter there. Sprinkle with M&Ms if you are using them. Bake for 20-25 minutes, until a cake tester inserted into a center muffin comes out clean or with just a little melted chocolate. (If you are baking 2 larger pans, switch from top to bottom and back to front halfway through.)
10. Let cool for 5 minutes and then remove from the pan to finish cooling on a cooling rack.

#MuffinMonday is a group of muffin loving bakers who get together once a month to bake muffins. You can see all our of lovely muffins by following our Pinterest board.

Updated links for all of our past events and more information about Muffin Monday, can be found on our home page.

• Asian Pear & Cardamom Cream Muffins from Farm Fresh Feasts
• Pumpkin Apple Streusel Muffins from A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Raspberry Jam Crumb Muffins from Karen’s Kitchen Stories
• Roasted Onion Brie Muffins from Food Lust People Love
• Triple Dark Chocolate Muffins from The Spiced Life
• Whole Wheat Apple Rum and Raisin Muffins from Passion Kneaded