Baking #77: Dangerously Dark Chocolate Muffins

Baked some Dangerously Dark Chocolate Muffins last Wednesday morning for my colleagues to bring to Alan in the evening. I baked some Double Chocolate Muffins on the evening before I went down to Miri two Wednesdays ago.

They were intended for both Alan and Ing but those muffins never get to see the daylight as they were unsuccessful in my opinion. Hence, they ended up for home consumption.

Dangerously Dark Chocolate Muffins (adapted from Bear Naked Food)

Ingredients:

• 160g dark chocolate chips *80g semi sweet chocolate chips*
• 120g unsalted butter, melted
• 240ml buttermilk
• 2 large eggs
• 170g self raising flour
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 70g natural unsweetened cocoa powder
• 190g castor sugar *120g fine textured brown sugar*
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Directions:

1. Mix all dry ingredients – self raising flour, baking soda, cocoa powder and sugar together. Sift and set aside.
2. In another large bowl, pour in all wet ingredients – melted butter, buttermilk, eggs and vanilla extract and whisk until well combined.
3. Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients mixture and pour in the wet ingredients. Gently fold in both dry and wet ingredients until no flour lump could be seen. Do not over mix the batter lest the muffins will turn out tough when baked.
4. Scoop batter evenly with an ice-cream scoop between muffin cases and bake in a preheated oven of 170 degrees Celsius for 15 to 20 minutes or until an inserted cake tester comes out clean in the centre of a muffin.
5. Transfer muffins to cool completely on a cooling rack before storing them in an airtight container to preserve the freshness of the muffins.

This recipe yields about 19 small size muffins. I don’t usually use such kind of muffin cases for my muffins but decided to buy them as I find them useful for baking as hand gifts. The size was just perfect for two bites size. LOL!

Sweetness level was perfect for me as I had reduced all sugar quantity by half and I do not want my friends to end up being diabetic or having decayed teeth. The muffins stayed fresh until the next day as Alan had only collected them from my colleague on the next morning.

This recipe is definitely a keeper for me. If you are a huge fan for chocolate muffins, do give this recipe a try. It is easy and definitely fool proof. =D

10062015 / Brewhouse

Brought out my HP notebook to use as it had been collecting dust in the corner of my room. Realized that I have too many backlogged blog entries hence decided that I will be clearing some of them today since I needed to transfer some pictures from my camera to the notebook.

Anyways, I was in Miri for a day trip last Wednesday as I needed to run some errands for Sister. Alan was nice enough to sacrifice part of his rest day driving me around so that I could complete all errands in a short time. We had breakfast at Piato Bistro located around Boulevard area. But unfortunately, no picture taken. Perhaps, next time?

Let’s not get sidetracked and get this done, shall we?

I met up with Ing during lunch hour after I was done with my errands. While waiting for my ride to arrive, both Ing and I took a coffee break at Brewhouse. Ing is no coffee drinker but she highly recommended me Brewhouse. Decided to give it a try as I had seen quite a few good reviews of the said cafe while browsing for the reviews of Piato Bistro earlier on.

Colorful, ain’t it?

Brewhouse is located on the first floor of Permaisuri Imperial City Mall. I think not all people know about this cafe apart from the locals. When I posted a picture of Brewhouse on my Instagram, one of my friends came to ask me the whereabouts of this cafe. I wonder if they thought Brewhouse is located in Bandar.

Shelves displaying products which you could buy, like mugs, coffee beans and so on.

The menu was written on the wall of the cafe facing the entrance of the cafe. They serve wine, beers, tea, coffee and snacks. All prices were inclusive of GST.

Hot Chocolate | RM8 & Salted Caramel Latte | RM9

Hot Chocolate for Ing and Salted Caramel Latte for me. I find the taste of caffeine for my Salted Caramel Latte was strong enough for my liking but the taste for Salted Caramel was rather subtle in my opinion. All in all, it was good enough for my coffee preference.

Brownie | RM8

Ing highly recommended me their Brownie. And true enough, it was the best brownie which I had by far. It was heated before serving. It has the chewy texture and yet crusty at the same time. Sweetness level was just perfect. The brownie came with a huge dollop of whipped cream and drizzled with some caramel sauce.

Permaisuri Imperial City Mall
FF11a, First Floor,
Jalan Merpati,
98000, Miri,
Sarawak,
East Malaysia
Tel: +6-085438033
Website: http://www.brewhouse.com.my

Baking #76: Moist Double Chocolate Muffins

Can’t believe that I have yet written a single post for the month of June. So, here comes one now. I actually have quite a few things to blog about and I have yet completed updating my previous holiday trip in March and I am now planning another trip to Singapore in August. Planning to visit some friends in Singapore while I am there.

Invited Alan to join me to Singapore as I needed a travel companion for Universal Studio Singapore as both Andrea and Patrick had been there a couple of times before and both were not so tempted to revisit the place again. Entrance fee is not cheap at all. If I am feeling generous, perhaps I could sponsor them both? LOL!

Anyways, I had been doing a little bit of baking recently when I have got the time. I had been interested in baking chocolate muffins recently as I had been craving for chocolates recently. I am not one big chocolate fan but I had been going back for more. So, I baked some and then ate one or two to satisfy my craving and gave the rest to my friends and colleagues.

Used this block of dark chocolate which I bought some time ago for Ultimate Fudgy Brownies by DessertzHouse but ended up not using it for the intended purpose. So, I used it for my Moist Double Chocolate Muffins instead.

It was not cheap, B$6 for 100g but it was well worth the price paid. Sometimes, you just have to use good quality chocolates for baking to achieve the intended results.

Moist Double Chocolate Muffins (adapted from Rumbling Tummy)

First batch …

Second batch ….

Without further ado, here comes the ingredients and directions of how to make these delicious Moist Double Chocolate Muffins …

Ingredients:

• 125g unsalted butter
• 100g chocolate bar *used Cote D’or*
• 225g all purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 40g cocoa powder
• 150g brown sugar *fine textured brown sugar*
• a pinch of salt *1/4 tsp*
• 200g white chocolate chips *80g Hershey’s semi sweet chocolate chips*
• 1 egg
• 222g milk *full cream milk*
• 150g plain yogurt *Greek style yogurt*
• 1 tsp vanilla essence

PS: Highlighted in red were my adjustments from the original recipe. 

Directions:

1. Melt butter and chocolate bar over a pot of hot water until they were completely melted. Set aside and leave to cool down.
2. Mix dry ingredients – all purpose flour, baking soda, cocoa powder, brown sugar and salt together. Sift all dry ingredients together and add in chocolate chips.
3. In another bowl, add wet ingredients – egg, milk, yogurt and vanilla essence together. Mix them with a balloon whisk until well combined.
4. Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients mixture and pour in the wet ingredients.
5. Fold in both dry and wet ingredients together and stop immediately when no flour lump could be seen.
6. Scoop batter evenly with an ice-cream scoop between cupcake liners and bake them in a preheated oven of 190 degrees Celsius for 20 to 25 minutes or until an inserted cake tester comes out clean in the centre of a muffin.
7. Leave muffins to cool in the muffin tray for about 10 minutes before removing them to cool completely on a cooling rack.

So, this was the texture of my Moist Double Chocolate Muffins. These muffins have a compact texture but the melted chocolate chips made them moist at the same time.

Sweetness level could be reduced if you do not like overly sweet dessert. I would suggest reducing the sugar quantity by another 50g.

This recipe yields 16 large size muffins and is definitely a keeper for me as they make good hand gifts for friends and families.