Chocolate Muffins (and the perfect chocolate cake recipe)

So here is my recipe for huge chocolate muffins with a surprise chocolate sauce filling – you know the kind you can buy in coffee shops and bakery chains up and down the country. They are twice the size of your average cupcake but take some beating! This is also my go to chocolate cake recipe and the quantity will be perfect for splitting between two 8″ tins.

Ingredients:

165g butter, softened
300g caster sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
3 eggs, large
70g self raising flour
200g plain flour
1tsp bicarbonate of soda
70g cocoa powder
225ml milk
25ml malt vinegar

100g chocolate chunks of your choice to top the muffins

Filling
150ml double cream
150g dark chocolate (Bournville)

Makes 12.

Don’t let my photos confuse you I’m making a bigger batch for my hungry boys!

Start off by measuring out the milk in a jug, add the 25ml of malt vinegar, give it a quick stir and leave it to stand until later.

Preheat the oven to 160c Fan/180c/Gas Mark 4.

One of the keys to big muffins is these tulip type cases. You can make them yourself but I find it fiddly and hard to do so I buy them!

Brown Tulip Cases

Coloured Tulip Muffin Cases

Add the tulip cases to a 12 hole cupcake tin.

Cream together the butter and the sugar.

Add the vanilla extract and eggs and beat together well.

Weigh out all the dry ingredients into a bowl together, I don’t sift them it doesn’t seem to make a difference with this recipe – add them all to the mix.

Now add the milk/vinegar combo and give the whole lot a really good mix up.

How easy is this recipe – and it works every time!

Add the mixture to the tulip cases about 2/3rds full.

Chop some extra chocolate and sprinkle the chunks on the top. Sometimes I’ll use chocolate chips but these do tend to drop into the cake rather than stay on the top like good big chunks do.

Bake them in the oven for around 25 minutes until perfectly cooked.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool for a couple of minutes before taking a sharp knife and piercing a whole in the muffin. Wriggle the knife around inside a little to make space where you will add the filling. If you put the knife in through one of the cracks in the top no-one will see it later.

Now leave the muffins to cool completely.

To make the filling chop the 150g chocolate into small pieces. I’m using chocolate chips as it saves me having to chop it by hand – lazy? me? no just time saving!

Heat the cream in a pan until nearly boiling.

Remove from the heat and add the chocolate.

Allow the mixture to stand for a couple of minutes and then mix until you have a smooth glossy ganache.

You now need to leave this to stand for about 15 minutes until it has cooled down slightly.

To get the filling into the muffin you will need a piping bag and a metal icing tip. You have two options here – one of these long needle type tips designed for filling the likes of jam doughnuts. I have a Masterclass Flavour Injector (which they sell in Lakeland). The needles screw onto a syringe but I just fit them to a piping bag.

You can also do it with a regular icing tip (PME no 43) which is wide enough for the filling to squeeze through.

Fit the tip to the piping bag and fill with your cooled ganache.

Place the tip into the top of the muffin through the knife slit you made earlier and squeeze in the filling. If your ganache is difficult to squeeze in it has cooled too much so you will need to warm it up a little first.

As the muffin fills with ganache you will see it plump up the top and when it is full it will start to ooze through the whole you made so now’s the time to stop squeezing.