Chocolate Muffin

I was craving for a high domed muffin, you know, like those from Chocolate 'N Spice. I googled and found some bloggers tried to recreate the high domed and cake-like muffin. Then, I saw the photo of a somewhat familiar looking muffin on Joy of Baking and decided to use her recipe.

Some baking experts said that the temperature of the oven is the key to a high domed muffin. Setting the oven temperature at 200 degC seems to be the trick. Joy of Baking uses 190 degC, which is pretty close to 200 degC. Of course if the muffins are baked at 200 degC, they will be overbaked/burnt if you bake them for the same period of time. That requires some adjustments based on your oven at home. I didn't want to take the risk of a burnt muffin, so I preheat the oven at 200 degC, then lowered it to 190 degC at the start of the baking. I lowered it further to 180 degC after 10 mins, but had to bake it 10-15 mins longer than the 20 mins per the original recipe. More experiments will be required before I can figured out what is the secret formula for my oven :p The muffin is done once an inserted toothpick comes out almost clean (a few crumbs is ok).

Here's the recipe I used, please refer to Joy of Baking for the original recipe and method/video.

Ingredients

Makes 12 5cm-diameter paper muffin cups

113g unsalted butter, melted

130g top flour

100g organic wholemeal flour (I ran out of plain flour :p)

60g unsweetened cocoa powder

1 tsp baking soda

2/3 tsp double-acting baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

110g dark brown sugar + dry demerara sugar (original recipe uses 265g light brown sugar)

3 medium eggs (original recipe uses 2 large eggs)

240g low-fat milk including 1 tbsp vinegar (original recipe uses buttermilk)

few drops of vanilla paste (original recipe uses 2 tsp pure vanilla extract)

100g chocolate chips (original recipe uses 170g)

This recipe produces a soft, cake-like muffin although it uses the dry- and wet-ingredients method.

my notes:

- butter can be melted using bain marie

- to substitute for buttermilk, pour 1 tbsp of vinegar in a cup, add milk to 240g

- batter is thick

- stop folding once no trace of dry ingredients is seen

- drastic reduction in sugar results in a muffin that is not very sweet, but just nice for my palate

- chocolate muffins/cakes usually taste more flavorful the next day

Simple recipe, simple pleasure in life :)

I'm not able to take a good photo of the muffin as the color is very dark :D