Sunday, June 2, 2013

Muffin Mondays: Dark Chocolate Cherry Muffins


Recently, I began celebrating the soon to be worldwide holiday known as Muffin Mondays. Delusions of grandeur filled my head as I decided to embark on a journey of two delicious muffiny treats to great my coworkers in the morning.  Unfortunately, my strawberry rhubarb yogurt muffins turned in to an unmitigated disaster, but, then, as if smiled upon by the baking gods, a Muffin Monday Miracle occurred. My Dark Chocolate Cherry Muffin recipe which was supposed to yield 2 dozen muffins entered some weird wormhole and produced 48 delicious breakfasty treats (I may have been a little suspicious given the insane amount of flour it called for, but I wasn't about to let something like math or numbers stop me!).


Screw you, strawberry rhubarb suckins!
Dark Chocolate Cherry Muffins
Adapted from All Recipes
Servings: 24 muffins (adjusted to actually be 24)
Time: 40+ minutes (how fast can you chop cherries?)

This might take a while...
2 1/3 cups  all-purpose flour
1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup sour cream
1/2 cup milk
1/3 cup vegetable oil
2 eggs, beaten
1 tsp almond extract
1 1/2 cups fresh dark cherries, pitted and chopped
1 cup dark chocolate chips
Sliced almonds (optional)


Chocolate and fruit, what a novel idea that has certainly never been tried before!
  1. Attempt to make strawberry rhubarb muffins. Fail miserably.
  2. Preheat the oven to 350 F.
  3. Whisk the flour, sugar, cooca powder, baking powder, baking soda and salt together in a large bowl.
  4. Mix the sour cream, milk, vegetable oil, eggs and almond extract in a bowl until well blended.
  5. Slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and stir until just incorporated.
  6. Fold the cherries and dark chocolate chips into the batter.
  7. Fill lined muffin tins 1/2- 2/3 full. Sprinkle on almond slices if desired.
  8. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until the toothpick test comes back clean (beware of false negatives from the melted chocolate chips).
  9. Let the tins cool on wire racks for 5 minutes. Then remove the muffins and allow them to finish cooling on the racks.
  10. Realize the second type of muffin isn't necessary because these are absurdly awesome.

Souped up almond model. Now if I can just figure out where the NOS goes...
Normally, I don't go for chocolate muffins (chocolate is for my unhealthy lattes and not my fruit-filled morning treats), so these combo fruit/chocolate muffins were the perfect way to help me ease into an exciting and scary new lifestyle. These were vaguely reminiscent of chocolate liqueur cherries thanks to the almond extract, but the real heart of this breakfast was the abundance of juicy cherries intermingling with the decadent dark chocolate that made all that chopping worth it. Venturing away from my normal muffin comfort zone proved to be the right choice, as these may have been the most deserving entry to Muffin Mondays yet.
The inner workings of a muffin are almost as complicated as those of the human body (at least I imagine mine is filled with chocolate and fruit).

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