Muffin Monday - Triple Chocolate Muffins

In my dreams I gorge on chocolates, I roll in chocolates, and their texture is not brittle but soft as flesh, like a thousand mouths on my body, devouring me in fluttering small bites. To die beneath their tender gluttony seems the culmination of every temptation I have ever known.

~ Joanne Harris, Chocolat

So are you ready to face your week head-on with these devilishly decadent Triple Chocolate Muffins? I'm very late for this week's Muffin Monday, so late in fact that there's only a few hours left to my Monday over where I'm at. Let me explain the reason for this unusual (but fast becoming the usual!) tardiness - it's partly because I'm sick as a dog today, but mainly, it's because I've been very disorganized. The complete opposite of our event host, Anuradha of Baker Street, who actually sent this recipe early on last week. My apologies again, An and many thanks for letting me still participate. 

Get ready for some love....and lovin'.

Chocolate is hands down my most irresistable indulgence, as in, I am not able to resist having it in any of its forms. Sounds a bit like an illness when I put it that way, but maybe it is a kind of addiction. Well let's be grateful that at least it's legal :).

I looked through the recipe and the 'triple-ness' came from the cocoa, bittersweet and semisweet chocolate chips, with a dash of espresso powder to give the muffins a kick. My sister had brought back a stash of some rather lovely Swiss chocolates the last time she came home to get married (actually, she only got married once), so I decided to use some of those in place of the chocolate chips. I'm surprised we still had some left over, or perhaps our chocolate stash was really the size of a sweet-toothed pirate's treasure loot... ;).

I chopped up a handful of bite-sized, white-tipped Toblerones which went into the batter as chips and to top each muffin, I placed a slice of milk chocolate filled with salted caramel in the middle. I don't have to tell you how good this combination of chocolate-everything tastes like as you bite into the muffin's warm belly, do I?

The recipe is so easy that I did everything by hand as soon as I rolled out of bed and had these ready in time for breakfast! We don't normally start off each day with Triple Chocolate Muffins (unfortunately, sanity and willpower prevail) but this one time we did, you can bet we walked out the front door with an extra bounce in our step!

Muffin Monday is an initiative by Baker Street. A culinary journey of sharing a wickedly delicious muffin recipe every week. Drop in a quick line to join her on her journey to make the world smile and beat glum Monday mornings week after week.

Muffin Monday: Triple Chocolate Muffins
Makes 12
Ingredients:
1/2 cup (1 stick) salted butter
1 3/4 cup unbleached, all-purpose flour
2/3 cup dutch-process cocoa
11/4 cup sugar
1 tsp instant espresso powder
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp Kosher salt
1/2 c. bittersweet chocolate chips (I used mini-white topped Toblerones, cut into small chunks)
1/2 c. semisweet chocolate chips (I used salted caramel-filled milk chocolate, as a topping)
2 eggs
1 cup milk
2 tsp pure vanilla extract
2 tsp white vinegar

Method:

1. Line a muffin tin with 12 paper cups. Spray lightly with cooking spray. Preheat oven to 425.

Melt the butter; set aside to cool.

2. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa, sugar, espresso powder, baking powder, baking soda, salt and chopped chocolate.

3. In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs, milk, vanilla and vinegar until blended. Stir in the cooled, melted butter.

4. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients. Stir with a rubber spatula, just until blended.

5. Spoon into the prepared muffin liners…the cups will be very full. Bake for 15-20 minutes until the muffins bounce back when pressed with a finger. Cool on a wire cooling rack for 5 minutes.

6. Remove from the pan and let them cool just a bit longer. Serve warm.