A recent addition to my friendship circle, Jenni, gave me this recipe as an offering to my bake-sale goodies. However, I ran out of time before I got to bake them. I decided to try them tonight, because I’ve not done much all week, as I’ve been sick and I had been promising them to Col for a while now…
The muffins themselves were good, in fact, having just eaten my second one, they were really good! I’m not used to using self raising flour and since moving over to the US I’ve taken to doing things the US way, plain flour (++). I’ve also tried to write the cup-values in there as well, as I know a lot of y’all don’t use the metric system.
I don’t think they were *too* chocolate-y as such, I just don’t think that there was quite enough orange in there. I think if you were to use Terry’s chocolate orange, the orange flavour would maybe be strong enough. Perhaps add a little orange extract? or some orange liqueur would definitely give it a kick.
They are also easy to overcook, I baked them for 13 minutes, added an extra 2 minutes and at 13 minutes the toothpick was still covered in wet batter, yet, at 15 minutes it was done, perhaps a *tad* too much.
I’ve just had one cooled to room temperature, the chocolate chips inside were still all gooey and delicious, the cake moist and the flavour pretty well balanced. I think these are better when slightly cooled, rather than hot, hot, hot, out of the oven!
This was, however, the first recipe I’ve ever tried, when the amount makes what the recipe-maker says it does. This recipe, makes 12 muffins (yes, yes it does!)
Ingredients
300g / 2 cups Self Raising Flour
1tsp baking powder (I’d add a tiny smidge more)
90g (just shy of half a cup) sugar
200ml milk (I used 2%)
2 eggs
Rind of one large orange
4tbsp orange juice
4tbsp sunflower oil (I used canola oil)
240g chocolate chips (Jenni’s guesstimate was 6 Terry’s chocolate orange bars = 240g)
Method
Set oven to 400F
Line 12 baking cases with liners
Sift flour and baking powder into a bowl and stir in sugar and chocolate.
In another bowl, mix together the milk, eggs, orange zest, orange juice and sunflower oil.
Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients, one third at a time, combining thoroughly after each addition.
Fill muffin cases to the top.
Bake for 15-20 minutes (I baked for 15 and it was maybe a minute too long).
The filling process is different to that of cupcakes, normally, with those, I fill 2/3 full to get them nice and flat on top. However, with muffins you want a dome-shaped top, so fill ’em right up.
