Last week, I received my first ever cake order from OCT's colleague who wanted to surprise his wife with a birthday cake. I was excited and feeling really stressed at the same time. He didn't specify on the kind of cake he wanted, except for something fruity and in season. And preferably not something covered in chocolate. (unfortunately, that is the kind of cake I like). So off to the market I went, stocking on all the fruits that looked good to me, without the slightest idea of what cake I would be making.
After pacing up and down the various fruit aisles for no less than 6 times, I bought some strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, kiwis and rhubarbs (yay, they are still there!). I would have bought some mango too, if I didn't already have about half a dozen in the fridge. At one point, I was contemplating of making a mixed berries pavlova in place of the birthday cake. Seriously, I wouldn't mind having pavlova for my birthday, but this cake is not about me, isn't it?
I digress. This post is not about the birthday cake either! I will tell you more about it when OCT reports back on the recipient's feedback. I am going to tell you about these simple but awesome muffins I made on Friday night for our weekend breakfast. The inspiration comes from Cook and Eat and the many raspberries that I bought but didn't use in the birthday cake.
I adapted Lara's recipe, and threw in some chocolate chips and meyer lemon zest into the batter. You could use all berries in the recipe, but I craved for chocolate. I couldn't believe that I haven't made any chocolatey dessert ever since we moved to Atlanta! I miss my chocoholic friends S and A in St Louis. And the RK lab that enjoy chocolatey baked goods as much as I do...
Making these Raspberry Chocolate Chip muffins is a breeze. No mixer is required. All you need, is a big mixing bowl and a spatula/wooden spoon to do the mixing. Fresh berries can be replaced by frozen ones. No thawing required. Which I think is an advantage over the fresh ones, and they don't sink as much. (not to mention, the frozen raspberries are cheaper and available year round too!)
The simple and straight forward instructions that gives you the most moist and flavorful muffins which you will make over and over again, until you run out of berries. I was going to savor one of the raspberry muffins for breakfast this morning, but found that none was left! Learn from my mistake: if you ever make this raspberry chocolate chips muffins, hide some in a safe place before presenting them to friends/families. They don't last long.
Raspberry Chocolate Chips Muffins
adapted from Cook and Eat
1 (6 oz container) fat free yogurt
1.5 tablespoons soy milk (or 2% milk or skim milk)
3.5 fl oz (100 ml) canola oil
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 1/4 cups (280g) all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
zest from 1 meyer lemon (optional)
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 1/2 cups fresh or frozen raspberries (or a mixture of different berries)
1/2 cup bittersweet chocolate chips
Preheat the oven to 350F. Line a muffin tin with paper liners, or grease it and set aside.
Whisk the yogurt, milk, oil and eggs until smooth, then mix in the vanilla.
In a separate, large bowl, sift together the flour and baking powder. Stir in the lemon zest, if using; brown sugar and granulated sugar. Then, get your berries. First, pick out 12 of the larger berries to stick on the top of each muffin, and set those aside. Now, stir the berries and chocolate chips into the flour sugar mixture until they are well coated.
Fold in the yogurt mixture, and stir until there are no significant bits of dry flour. The batter will be quite dry, more like scone mixture.
Spoon the batter into the muffin tin, dividing evenly between each hole. You can fill these all the way to the top… they will rise some, but not excessively. Top each with one of the berries you picked out, and press a few more chocolate chips to the side, if you like.
Bake for 25 to 35 minutes or until the tops are nicely golden and a skewer inserted comes out clean.
For a while there I thought you'd presented your client with birthday muffins... With chocolate no less! :) Well, I certainly wouldn't mind having this any day!
ReplyDeleteActually I wouldn't mind having a family that ate my goodies freely. They have hang-ups about eating the last piece, etc. but I don't want to eat a lot of my desserts 'cause I don't want to get fat!
Great looking muffins! I love the addition of raspberries and chocolate!
ReplyDeleteThis is a fun, summery muffin. Beautiful too :)
ReplyDeleteI was thinking that you had decided to make muffins for the client rather than a cake!
Raspberry and chocolate together! That's heaven! Hope the recipient liked your cake!
ReplyDeleteSo pretty and so tasty looking :) If those disappeared in my house, I would take it as a compliment :D
ReplyDeleteI love raspberry very much. I've been using for many recipe but haven't seen any combination of raspberry with muffins. I believed it must be very delicious. What a creative recipe!
ReplyDeleteYea..those muffins are so beautiful, it can "beat" any cupcakes anytime ;)
ReplyDeleteCan't wait to see the b'day cake post :)
Those do look really yummy!!
ReplyDeleteI'm not surprised they don't last long - I would have 3 or 4 in a heartbeat! :)
ReplyDeleteThese look so fun :D! The raspberries really pop out, and I bet they taste extra delicious with the chocolate chips. Nice, healthy ingredients too, btw :).
ReplyDeleteBEAUTIFUL PIC!
Superb! I love the muffins. I agree that the flavor combination is excellent.
ReplyDeleteSharona May
U bake very pretty muffins! :-) I love fruits and chocs!
ReplyDeleteHello! I just baked these muffins and am enjoying them. =D Thanks for the great recipes!!
ReplyDeleteLove raspberries they are so great and beautiful and cute.
ReplyDeleteOh these look really good! I love the raspberry-chocolate combination, and to have them in muffins? Absolutely divine. Thank you for sharing the recipe, sweetie :) I wish raspberries weren't so expensive here, though. gRRRRR...
ReplyDeleteoh this muffin is so yummy!! raspberry and chocolate chips this is now my official favorite muffin :-)
ReplyDeletethanks everyone for your lovely comments! I wish I could pass each and everyone of you a muffin!
ReplyDeleteI simply adore these muffins...are they mini muffin size?? How I wish I get receive one from you! Haha...
ReplyDeleteThese look simply delicious! I love your addition of chocolate chips - perfect!
ReplyDeleteOh, those are beautiful! I happen to have some raspberries in the fridge right now, it's a sign, I must make these muffins! :)
ReplyDeleteI usually have that Almond Breeze milk, would that work too?
ReplyDeletemistress of the dark,
ReplyDeleteThe original recipe actually call for milk, but I substituted soy milk with no problem. I think the milk is there to provide moisture. So you can go ahead and use almond breeze milk, although the end product may have an undertone almond flavor.Good luck with the muffins and let me know how it goes!
wow it seem to be really delicious! love it!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.flickr.com/photos/mmemuffin/
http://madamemuffin.blogspot.com/
Thanks for a great recipe. I was low on milk and the yogurt was a great substitute!
ReplyDeleteHello! My name is Christine, and I tried your recipe for the first time: I made it in cake form (didn't change the recipe; just put it in a cake pan) and baked it until the knife came out clean (almost an hour). However, the inside came out looking quite dark...almost underdone :(
ReplyDeleteI was wondering what went wrong, or if it's supposed to look like that?
Some things I did that might have caused it: I left it inside the oven when I turned it off to let it bake a little more as a precaution. I then put it in the refrigerator after I took it out of the oven (after an hour), but it was sufficiently cool~