Double Chocolate Cinnamon Muffins

Why is that whenever a recipe has the word "cinnamon" in the title, only 1/2 a teaspoon or 1 teaspoon of it is listed in the ingredients? In my opinion, for a dish to have the word "cinnamon" in the title- it needs around a tablespoon- at least!

And so when I read the recipe for 'chocolate "cinnamon" muffins' in my Marks and Spencer cookbook, I scoffed.  Half a teaspoon? Really? Ohh no, I'd add three more teaspoons, yes I would.

And that's what I did. Cinnamon works really well with cocoa powder.. And makes your kitchen smell like heaven. I just wish our oven was in the inside kitchen so that the whole house could smell like muffins. Or whatever it is that I'm baking. But an outside kitchen does have its benefits- especially when you have guests over and don't want the house smelling like onion and garlic.

But back to muffins, I love making them, perhaps because I don't make them that much. And also, the super-risen texture of it makes them look wholesome. There are so many ways that you can vary muffins, and make them savoury, unlike cupcakes, so that muffins make a great snack any time of day.

Anyways, without further ado, I present to you my modified version of chocolate cinnamon muffins.

Ingredients
butter, for greasing
225g plain flour
55g cocoa powder
1tbsp baking powder
4tsp ground cinnamon
pinch of salt
115g soft light brown sugar
160g chocolate chips
2 eggs
250ml milk
85g butter, melted and cooled

Procedure
Preheat oven to 200C. Grease a 12-cup muffin tin. Sift together flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt into a large bowl. Stir in sugar and chocolate chips.

Lightly beat the eggs in a large bowl then beat in the milk and butter. Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and pour in the beaten liquid ingredients. Stir gently until just combined. Do not overmix.

Spoon into prepared muffin tin and bake in the preheated oven for about 20 minutes until well-risen and firm to the touch. Serve warm, dusted with icing sugar if desired. (which I did but didn't take pictures of because the muffins were already in my tummy).

*

I got an idea for "gourmet" muffins.. I wanted to serve these with a scoop of vanilla icecream and some caramel or butterscotch (or even chocolate) sauce drizzled along the middle of the muffin and ice cream scoop....something like my version of a peach melba.

Daring Bakers March Challenge: Yeasted Meringue Coffee Cake

All ready to eat!

The March 2011 Daring Baker’s Challenge was hosted by Ria of Ria’s Collection and Jamie of Life’s a Feast. Ria and Jamie challenged The Daring Bakers to bake a yeasted Meringue Coffee Cake.


This is my first Daring Bakers Challenge that I participated in and to be honest, I was kind of intimidated when I saw that this month's recipe used yeast. Baking with yeast always freaks me out since I always hallucinate that the dough is never going to rise. And I always have the impression that it's going to take aaaaaages to prepare.


Anyways, the recipe was extremely fun to make and was quite quick for yeast (and TWO rises)! I started around 2 pm and by 4.45pm everything was ready. The BEST part was the part below: spreading the meringue on the cake and sprinkling walnuts, chocolate chips, cinnamon, and sugar. Rolling it up was quite amusing as well.. since I had never done something like that before. 

The second rise before it was baked

 The smell of the kitchen as it was baking was HEAVENLY. And the smell of the actual cake was even better. Everyone was trying to stick their noses into it to get a full whiff of that cinnamony, chocolatey, sugared goodness.