Sunday mornings are for muffins in our house.
(After a few weeks of a smiling toddler prying your eyes open, asking for a partner in crime to watch cartoons at 6am, you find yourself looking for ways to put your early morning waking hours to good use.)
We generally have a blueberry – banana chocolate chip – apple cinnamon – mom’s choice rotation in our muffin-making, but today… I was filled with muffin ennui.
So this happened:
Double Chocolate Mini Muffins with Toasted Almonds and Dried Tart Cherries
(yields 48 mini muffins)
Pre-heat oven to 375 F. Prep your mini-muffin tin by liberally coating it with non-stick spray.
In a large bowl, measure out the following and mix until well combined:
- 2 cups flour (I like to mix half all-purpose flour and half whole-wheat flour, but only because I like to sneak whole grains in wherever my children cannot find them. Not obligatory.)
- 1/2 cup dutch-process or dark cocoa
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 2 teaspoons instant espresso powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- pinch salt
Set the whole darn thing aside.
Grab a slightly smaller bowl, measure out the following and mix until thoroughly blended:
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 2 cups plain, unflavored greek yogurt
- 1 egg
- 1 egg yolk (the extra egg white always goes to our dogs. this is their favorite day of the week, too.)
- 2/3 cup vegetable oil (canola or the like)
- 1 teaspoon almond extract
Pour the liquid goodies into the dry goodies and fold until just moistened.
Add your chewy bits:
- 3/4 cup dried Montmorency tart cherries
- 3/4 cup miniature dark chocolate chips
- 1 cup toasted almond slivers (mine were blanched almonds, I just tossed them in the oven on a cookie sheet while the oven preheated.)
Fold the bits in with a rubber spatula til combined.
Using a Wee Scoop (there’s a technical/pastry chef term for that tool, but I didn’t go to pastry chef school, so in my house, it’s called The Wee Scoop), fill each mini muffin tin right up to the top with a scoop of muffin batter.
Bake @ 375 degrees F for 18 minutes. They should pop right out of the tin, and go great with a steaming cup of coffee and some Indie Singer/Songwriter. Just sayin’.
Nom!
(eat, drink, and) Be Merry. 