Mixed Chocolate and Raspberry Muffins

(makes 24, i think)

Adapted from Bourke Street Bakery Recipebook

A strange but not surprising self-reflection: the more i run, the more muffins i want to eat. 

The cravings in the past month of more intense training have been rather consuming, and it's not that easy to find perfect muffins (i'm not a snob but it's just too disappointing to eat bad muffins)! Light, fluffy, crusty muffin top with a generous amount of filling, why is it so hard to perfect? Oh, and of course they must be served warm. So after 3 separate conversations about baking on Saturday, the baking bug was re-ignited and since i couldn't find anyone to play tennis with, i decided to spend my Sunday afternoon napping and baking. 

Bourke Street Bakery and CBD (Central Baking Depot) have been a faithful source of delicious muffins, with their dark chocolate raspberry muffin etched into my muffin memory, though they are no longer making it the last 3 times i went :'( So to avoid further disappointment, i decided to try them for myself. The only problem was there was only a handful of dark chocolate left in the house, so ended up using whatever i could find:

Lol, random Easter bunny leftovers

Prep time: 20 min

Cooking time: 20-25 min

Ingredients:
2 2/3 C (400g) plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 C caster sugar (300g)
250g butter, melted
480mL buttermilk*
4 eggs
1 tsp vanilla essence
300g dark chocolate
300g raspberries (fresh or frozen)
Raw sugar, for sprinkling
Icing sugar, for dusting
*Can substitute buttermilk with 1C milk + 1 T vinegar/lemon juice, and let it sit for at least 5min


Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 180˚C and spray the muffin trays with spray oil, or line with 10x10cm squares of baking paper.
2. Sift the flour and baking powder into a large mixing bowl. Stir in the caster sugar.
3. Chop up the dark chocolate and measure out the raspberries.

Tip: Leaving  scraped vanilla bean in the caster sugar container makes it smell amazing!!

4. Add the melted butter to the buttermilk, then whisk in the eggs and the vanilla essence.
5. Mix in the wet mixture to the dry until just combined, then stir in the chocolate and raspberries.
NB. One of the keys to good muffin mixture is not over-mixing, resulting in tough muffins so need to make sure everything is ready to go before you mix the wet and the dry ingredients!
6. Pour the mixture into the muffin trays, sprinkle the tops with raw sugar and bake for 20-25 minutes. They're cooked when a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean! Let them cool in the tray for 5 min, then cool on a cooling rack for 10 minutes.
7. Serve warm!!

I'm still a bit baffled as to how this mixture turned into enough for 24 muffins and a muffin cake! (when it was supposed to be for 12 muffins, though i am convinced it is because i need to get the cafe-style deep muffin tray though i don't know from where??) I added a bit too much buttermilk substitute, then had to add more flour after etc, but anyways, the concept of a muffin cake is not that bad actually :)