The Accidental Muffin

Have you ever experienced that "Oh shit, I'm supposed to bring a dish to the party but I'm too lazy to go to the store" moment? Well, that's the way this recipe came about and I want to share it with you. And please don't let the half-assedness of my last-minute recipe quest deter you, because these suckers are actually really good.

It all came together for Nicole and Agatha'a President's Day Dessert Party at Daddy's. I had to create something sweet and edible from what I had sitting around at home. Not much...so I ultimately winged it with the ingredients, largely basing my decisions on how good the batter tasted. It was very scientific.

Behold the result:


This is the closest I've come to an actual recipe. I made it again this week, and found it's very similar to the Dessert Party original (that ended up being a freak surprise hit with everyone). Here's how it breaks down:

• 1/2 cup of unsalted butter, melted. Don't put less than this, as the butter is key. If anything, put a little too much.
• 2 cups all purpose flour, sifted.
• 2/3 cup dark brown sugar.
• 1/4 cup (any kind of) milk, plus more to moisten dough if necessary.
  
• 1 egg.
• Just under 1 teaspoon baking powder.
• 1 teaspoon salt.

* For the special chocolate bit on top, I used a fancy chocolate raspberry truffle bar, broken into pieces. Any fancy/high quality chocolate bar will be good.

I sifted the flour into a big bowl (using a large tea strainer as I don't actually own a sifter), then added all the rest of the ingredients. The brown sugar was really hard so I put it in a bowl with some of the milk and microwaved it until it was syrupy, then added it to the rest of the batter.

Once the batter was thoroughly mixed, nice and sticky and cookie-dough thick, I put dollops into a greased (or nonstick) muffin tin, filling about 2/3 of the way up. Then I took a bit of chocolate, about the size of a quarter, and placed it in the middle of each muffin cookie, slightly pressing it in. I baked at 375 for 11-12 minutes.

The muffins should be soft but firm to the touch, or you can do that clean toothpick/fork/knife test to be sure. Don't wait for it to turn golden, as color means nothing. It will always look....tan.
Be careful not to overcook or it will become dry, hard, and somewhat weaponized. I personally always try to slightly under cook desserts because I prefer too moist to too dry.

The chocolate will still be very melty when you pull it out of the oven, which is lovely...but if you need to travel with it, just throw it in the fridge for a half hour and it will solidify nicely. I'm sure putting pieces of banana, apples, nuts, etc would also work well if you don't want chocolate.

These are not overly sweet and are really good with milk, coffee, tea, or as we found out the night of the Dessert Party, hot toddies! Enjoy! xo kat