Bakery style double chocolate muffins

Let's return to chocolate, shall we?  I think that's always a good idea!

While it's pretty quiet here in this little blog space, my kitchen is keeping busy and continues to turn out a fairly steady stream of baked goods.  As always, the majority of what I bake involves chocolate since it's my very favorite thing (and my family is rather partial to it as well).  Recently, I discovered this great bakery style chocolate muffin recipe that I can now add to my muffin repertoire.  And as far as I'm concerned, one can never have too many muffin recipes since they play versatile roles as breakfast, snack, or dessert!

My muffins are baked in standard size tins but if you make jumbo versions of these, they really could slot right onto a bakery or coffee shop counter.  These double chocolate muffins are moist yet sturdy and firm.  All importantly, they have that crusty, firm top that I associate with bakery muffins.  

We love trying new muffins, especially when they're chocolate ones!  These chocolate muffins not only look the part but have plenty of serious chocolate flavor, which is so important.  Dark cocoa, a combination of chocolate chunks and chips, as well as a little espresso powder, really drives the chocolate flavor home.

After the storm...Double-chocolate muffins with mini chocolate chips

I might always think of these as my post-Hurricane Sandy muffins because they were the first thing I baked after our power was restored.  When the lights came back on, I was thrilled at the thought of using my oven again.  It sounds silly because I know there were and are far greater things to worry about than having a functional oven but it brought a little extra comfort to me in my little world.  I think we all want to feel useful and being able to cook and bake for my family gives me that feeling.  At the same time, the repetitiveness of cooking and baking is a great stress reliever, with an added bonus of a tasty reward at the end.  And speaking of stress relief, is there any better medicine than chocolate for the job?

Being mindful of conserving power, I baked these double chocolate muffins, which only take about 15 minutes in the oven.  I whipped up a small batch, just a half dozen (partly given limited resources at home – it was much too soon to venture out for groceries when much of the neighborhood was still without power), early the next morning after our power was restored and before my husband went off to work at a nearby office temporarily.  It felt good to be able to offer him something homemade before he took off to see what our world looked like post Sandy.

I found the recipe for these muffins a few weeks ago in a special Chocolate issue/magazine published by Better Homes and Gardens.  I’ve been on the lookout for a good chocolate muffin recipe because it satisfies my continuous craving for chocolate cake without the guilt of over-indulgence (no frosting and less sweet).  My last attempt at chocolate muffins was disappointing but these looked and sounded good – in particular, I like the use of oil as opposed to butter for a generally moister cake.

And I was very pleasantly surprised by these muffins!  It may have had something to do with the relief and joy I felt from having power again but I really like them and plan to make these from time to time.  They are moist (though not my favorite chocolate cake type moist but remember these are muffins, not cupcakes) and tender, and the use of mini chocolate chips really works here.  The chocolate flavor of the muffin itself comes from cocoa powder while the small chocolate chips blend throughout the muffin and provide a noticeable presence of actual chocolate in each bite.  In other words, they satisfy my chocolate craving.

I tweaked the recipe just a bit, adding some vanilla extract which was oddly missing, and I’m happy I reserved some of the mini chocolate chips to scatter on top of the muffins right before baking.  I like seeing the little chocolate studs on the surface, reinforcing the all-important presence of chocolate and giving a clear idea of what’s involved.  I’ve been experimenting with whole wheat pastry flour lately, and used a mixture of that and regular all-purpose with good results (i.e., unnoticeable taste difference as long as you keep the whole wheat pastry flour at no more than 50%).

I liked these so much, I made a second, full batch, a few days later!  The excuse was my brother and his family was staying with us part-time as their house remained dark after the storm and I thought we needed more breakfast/snack provisions.  I’ve discovered that when housebound with little to do and few places to go (scarcity of gasoline at the pump being one major issue), we need plenty of food and something to go with all those cups of java.

Interestingly, I almost like the flavor of these better the next day.  They may be a tad dryer versus fresh (I recommend re-warming them in the microwave for about 10 seconds just before eating like I do) but I think the flavors blended together and the whole wheat pastry flour (if you’re using) mellowed to the point of being totally indiscernible even when I experimented with using a bit more in my second batch.  I upped the ratio to 60% WW pastry flour and I could taste the whole wheat in that second fresh batch; the next day, however, it was not discernible at all.

Now the other good news is the lights came back on for my brother and his family (including my 3 young nephews) late that afternoon after I whipped up the second batch of these.  The way I figure it, they must be good luck!