Ultimate Chocolate Muffins.

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If you're searching for the best chocolate muffin recipe in the world, look no further! I have been testing out countless chocolate muffin recipes for several years now but this is the one I always come back to. It has a perfect texture and I always get compliments with them. As I say in most of my recipes, you can choose what chocolate you want to go inside, I usually use chunks (not chips) of white or milk chocolate but experiment around with different combinations. With this recipe you can have double, triple or even quadruple chocolate! The possibilities are endless! 

Ingredients:

200g/7oz plain flour

25g/1oz cocoa powder

1 tbsp baking powder

115/4oz caster sugar

185g/6.5oz chocolate

2 eggs

100ml/3.5 fl oz sunflower oil

200ml/7 fl oz milk

Method:

1. Preheat your oven to 200°C/400°F.

2. Line your cupcake/muffin tin with 12 muffin cases

3. Sift the flour, cocoa powder and baking powder into a bowl. Stir in the sugar.

4. Place the eggs and oil in a separate bowl and whisk until frothy. Gradually whisk in the milk.

5. Stir the eggs, oil and milk mixture into the dry ingredients. 

6. Add in your chocolate and stir.

7. Pour your mixture into the cases and fill each to about three quarters.

8. Bake for 20 minutes or until well risen and spongy.

You can also decorate the muffins with some melted chocolate and dust with cocoa powder, this is optional.

Enjoy!

Cappuccino Cake with Chocolate Orange Frosting.

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Okay, I know what you're thinking. 'Coffee and orange? Surely they are two flavours that should not be mixed!' That's what I thought when I tried this out, but you'll never know unless you have a go. I was pleasantly surprised that, because the coffee flavour in the cake isn't too strong, the orange in the frosting actually brings out the coffee and compliments it really well. This recipe is really easy to follow and produces a really moist cake with a delicious frosting. However, if you don't like the idea of chocolate orange, any chocolate can be used in the frosting. The original recipe suggested white chocolate to make the cake look like an actual cappuccino but sadly I didn't have enough so I decided to experiment with some Christmas leftovers instead.

Ingredients:

Cake: 225g/8oz Butter

225g/8oz Self-Raising Flour

1tsp Baking Powder

1tsp Cocoa Powder

225g/8oz Caster Sugar

4 Eggs (beaten)

3 tbsp Instant Coffee Powder (dissolved in 2 tbsp of hot water)

Frosting: 115g/4oz of your choice of Chocolate

55g/2oz Butter

3 tbsp Milk

175g/6oz Icing Sugar

Method:

1. Pre-heat your oven to 180°C.
2. Sift the flour, baking powder and cocoa powder into a bowl. Add the butter, caster sugar, beaten eggs and coffee and combine thoroughly until the mixture is smooth.
3. Pour the mixture into the tin lined with greaseproof paper and bake for 40 minutes or until the cake is well risen and firm.
4. Allow the cake to cool in the tin for around 10 minutes and then turn it out onto a cooling rack. Peel off the greaseproof paper carefully as the bottom of the cake will become the new top to offer a flat base for the frosting.
5. To make the frosting, melt the chocolate, butter and milk together in a bowl over simmering water. Keep stirring until it's well melted and smooth.
6. Sift the icing sugar into the melted mix and beat until combined.
7. When the cake is completely cool, spread evenly over the cake using a spatula or a kitchen palette knife.
8. To finish off, dust with an even amount of cocoa powder all over!

Enjoy!

The Photo Cookbook - Quick & Easy (iTunes 12 days of Christmas gift).

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I may be making a completely wrong assumption here but if you are into baking then there is a great chance you'll be into cooking too. If you have an iPhone/iPod/iPad etc you may or may not be aware of iTunes' 12 days of Christmas offer. Everyday of Christmas, iTunes are giving away a free gift. Be it a music video, a game, a book but today they are offering an app which gives you some delicious looking recipes with pictures to guide you along. Sadly, this only includes the 'Quick & Easy' section of the app which has meat, fish, vegetarian and dessert recipes.

There are also a 4 free recipes from the Italian, Asian and most importantly the Baking section but in order to unlock all of them you must pay £1.99 per section. This might be a good idea if you like the look of the 'ghosted-out' recipes. 

The layout of the recipes is very similar to a 'Bake with me' series I was planning. The first ever time I baked a cake I was really worried about how the mixture should look at each stage of the process and I thought it would be useful if I posted recipes that included pictures of this. Keep a look out for these posts soon! There are also quite a few recipes from this app that I'm really looking forward to trying out, especially the no-bake chocolate fudge cake, chocolate orange pots and feta & olive scones so I'll mention that it's from the app if I feature them in a post.

In order to get this app for free you must download the iTunes 12 days of Christmas app (it is in the top free apps in the app store) and follow the steps from there.

Enjoy!