Every recipe has a story. Readers will know that I volunteer weekly at Smartworks (pre-Corona virus hiatus any way). I bring baked goods every Wednesday for the staff, the clients and my fellow volunteers. We have a Wednesday team that does ‘wardrobe’. We have the pleasure of sorting, sizing, hanging and steaming the many wonderful donations from private donors and corporate partners.

Occasionally, I ask the Smartworks team for baking ‘requests’. And one of the Wednesday team, the lovely Daryl, asked for chocolate cheesecake muffins. Never made them before so perused blogs and internet recipe sites. They are an American thing (Daryl, like me, is an American in the UK) but I was looking for a recipe that used weight and metric measurements. Follow Daryl on Instagram here. I can convert from volume to weight but American recipes can call for ingredients that I don’t like to use and tend to be too sweet. I found a recipe here on Allrecipes.co.uk that served as a good base although I tweaked the sugar and the prep instructions a bit.

And thus a classic recipe was added to my repertoire. These muffins are vote winners and relationship builders any place you take them. A couple of bonuses – can be whipped together in a hour or so. And I get to use the 24 cup muffin tin I brought home from America. The recipe makes 18 to 24 nice sized muffins; you could halve it or you could make 12 big ones and then some mini ones. Adjust the baking temperature and time down if you decide to make small ones.

A few tips: first use Philadelphia cream cheese if you can find it. I don’t know what they put in that stuff but it gives the best texture. It also works with Waitrose basic cream cheese and really expensive organic stuff but Philly is easiest to work with. Second, if you’re a regular reader you know my views on chocolate. Use the best quality cocoa powder and chocolate chips you can afford. it makes a difference. Finally, I use a piping bag to fill the muffin tins. Once you get the hang of it – it’s a time saver and it keeps your tin tidy.

Everyone say ‘thank you Daryl’ now and move on to the recipe.

Recipe

Ingredients

Cream cheese filling

• 225g cream cheese
• 1 egg
• 50 grams caster (granulated) sugar
• 1/8 teaspoon salt

Chocolate batter

• 200 grams plain flour
• 175 grams caster sugar
• 60 grams unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 250ml water
• 75ml vegetable oil
• 1 tablespoon plain vinegar (distilled malt or white vinegar)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

170 grams dark chocolate chips.

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 180C (160C fan). Prep your muffin tins (makes 18 to 24) I use paper liners in my muffin tins and give them a quick spray of coconut oil. You can go without the spray oil but I would not do these in an unlined tin even if you grease and flour.
2. Beat together the ingredients for the cream cheese filling. Put to one side.
3. Sift together the dry ingredients for the chocolate batter: flour, sugar, cocoa powder, bicarbonate of soda, salt.
4. Combine the water, vegetable oil, vinegar and vanilla extract. Mix into the dry ingredients. The batter will appear very thin.
5. Fill a piping bag with the chocolate batter and carefully pipe each muffin tin about one third full. There’s usually too much batter for one bag so use a second one or clip the first one closed with a binder clip (you know those annoying black clips that we used for paper documents). See this video of me filling the tins. I’m working on doing better videos – with narration for one. Bear with me.
6. Fill another piping bag with the cream cheese filling. Pipe a couple of tablespoons on the top of each chocolate batter base. I do one squeeze of the bag all the way around and then circle back to those that look less full.
7. We haven’t forgotten the chocolate bits. Drop 6 or so in the cream cheese filling of each muffin tin. I know this seems fiddly and it’s fine if one or two end up in the chocolate part but it’s the best way to evenly distribute them
8. Put your tin or tins in the oven for 30 minutes, then test for doneness.
9. Remove from the oven and let the muffins cool in the tins for 5 minutes, then remove. If you let them cool completely in the muffin tins the edges can harden.

Enjoy! Thanking you for subscribing, for reading the blog and for baking the recipes. It’s a labour of love – I have no hope of monetisation but it’s fun for me. Please send requests, comments, etc.

Happy Baking.

It’s still January (just barely). I’m back to the King Arthur Whole Grain Baking quest after a busy and tumultuous holiday season. Also, I started my non-exec and ‘consulting’ job. But that’s in my parallel universe. Here, it’s all about that bread.

I was trying to be methodical and start at the beginning of the cookbook but I fell at the first fence. The first chapter is ‘breakfast’. It’s essentially pancakes, waffles, crepes and granola. The problem here is that the Davinator prefers savoury breakfast – unless it’s a croissant and then he’s all over it with the butter and jam. So, I parked the first chapter until I have keener ‘consumers’. Maybe pancake day…..

I’ve jumped to the quick bread chapter which has twelve muffin recipes. And decided I must go in strict order. So, it’s ‘Sour Cream Muffins’ to start. Here we go.

I have, however, a couple of minor criticisms of the KA Whole Grain Baking cookbook.

The first is that in their quest to make whole grain taste good, the recipes call for an array of specialised ingredients. A few of these are practically impossible to find in the UK – so if I can’t get it, I’m assuming readers will be unable to source. I’ve decided to ‘substitute’ those difficult ingredients. If substitution doesn’t work, I’ll punt on those recipes until I can get my hands on the real thing. One thing I couldn’t find -‘white whole wheat flour’. I tried a mix of white and whole wheat flour and that came out fine in this recipe.

The second is that the recipes are tailored to American taste buds. After I’ve made them the first time, I start reducing the sugar. In some recipes, I’ve cut the sugar by 1/3. I’m careful with this because sugar also affects the basic chemistry of baked goods, beyond making it sweet.

I made these muffins with frozen blueberries and I suspect they would be fine with any frozen or fresh fruit. My frozen blueberries (from Sainsburys I confess) were on the large size, so I would probably try smaller berries or smaller pieces of fruit the next time.

Recipe

Ingredients – makes 12 muffins

150 grams (5 ounces) whole wheat flour

140 grams (4 1/3 ounces) plain white flour (not self raising)

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

55 grams (2 ounces, 4 tablespoons) unsalted butter, melted

180 grams (6 1/3 ounces) of sugar

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

225 mls (8 fluid ounces) of sour cream or full fat greek yoghurt

220 grams (8 ounces) frozen blueberries

Instructions

1. Combine the first five ingredients; flour to salt, in a bowl. Stir together.
2. Put the melted butter in the bowl for your mixer. Add the sugar. Beat to combine (don’t you love the melted butter trick).
3. Scrape down the bowl, beat in the eggs one a time and combine well.
4. Add the vanilla and the sour cream. Beat until incorporated.
5. Add the dry ingredients from step 1. Mix on low speed until just combined. (Do not overbeat quick bread, it will punish you).
6. Stir in the frozen fruit. Make sure that the bottom of the batter has mixed in properly.
7. Cover the bowl and refrigerate for an hour. You could leave it longer but I think the frozen fruit will deteriorate if you leave it for too long.
8. Preheat the oven to 200C (180C fan) (375F).
9. Prep a muffin pan with paper liners lightly coated with non-stick spray or grease the tin.
10. Fill the muffin pan – I use my ice cream scoop. Put a generous scoop full in each muffin cup.
11. Bake for 22 to 26 minutes. They will look lovely and brown on the top when complete.
12. Cool for 5 minutes in the tin, then tip out to cool on a rack or on the counter top. Don’t let them cool in the tin; that’s how they get hard crust on the sides and bottom.

Enjoy. One recipe down, eleven to go.