Dark Chocolate Black Cherry Muffins

Holy heaven and a half, am I glad to be home!! It has been a long, long day of errand-running. On the bright side, we have no errands left to run tomorrow! The longest, of course, was the DMV. Getting our driver's licenses changed to Colorado. We've been informed that is one of the things holding up our homestudy. Nice to know!! Anyway, when we got there, there had just been a crowd of lunch-break-ers about the same time as most of the staff left for lunch! We were there for three hours. With little kids. *Headache* Luckily, the boys were really, really good. Stellar, actually. The iPad helps. They're only allowed to play with it when in a waiting room, so it never gets old! And boy, is it a lifesaver! New licenses in the mail, groceries bought, errands over, time to breathe. Ahhhh... And blog :)

Dark Chocolate Black Cherry Muffins (adapted from Dorie Greenspan: Baking - From My Home To Yours)
Printable Recipe

6 Tb unsalted butter
4 oz bittersweet chocolate, coarsley chopped
2 cups flour
2/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder, sifted
1 Tb baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1-1/4 cups buttermik
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 cup dark chocolate chips (optional)

black cherry preserves

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and place a rack in the center of the oven. Grease/line a 12-cup muffins pan. Place the muffin pan on a baking sheet.

Melt the butter and half the chopped chocolate together in a bowl over a saucepan of simmering water; or do this in a microwave. (30 seconds, stir well, 15 seconds, stir well, 15 more seconds) When melted together smoothly, remove from the heat.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, sifted cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt. In a large glass measuring cup or another bowl, whisk the buttermilk, egg and vanilla extract together until well combined. Pour the liquid ingredients and the melted butter and chocolate over the dry ingredients and, with a wooden spoon or a rubber spatula, gently but quickly stir to blend. Don't over-mix, lumps are good! Stir in the remaining chopped chocolate and additional chocolate chips (if desired. Those 2 oz of chopped chocolate just didn't look like enough to me!)

Place a heaping tablespoon of batter in the bottom of each muffin cup. Add about a tablespoon-sized dollop of preserves on top. Cover preserves with another heaping tablespoon of batter, gently pushing the batter down around the sides, making sure it meets the bottom layer of batter, completely enclosing the preserves. (Raspberry would work well too!)

Bake for 20-25 minutes. Transfer the pan to a rack and cool 5 minutes before carefully removing each muffin. Serve warm!

I thought it would be fun to show you my workspace... When I know a recipe by heart, I'm a pretty tidy baker. When I'm too busy paying attention to the "step-by-step", it looks more like... this! 

Inspiration!! This is another recipe from my new favorite baking cookbook by Dorie Greenspan, Baking - From My Home To Yours. She has these fun little notes in the side with variations and recommendations. The one next to these muffins said they were delicious with black cherry jam, so I thought, why not put it in the muffins? (I did half with liners and half without, just for fun)

Apparently that was a really good idea. According to the resident chocoholic, The Geologist, these muffins are "like an X-rated chocolate covered cherry". Ha! His explanation was that if your basic chocolate covered cherry is the kid version, this is the super-grownup-adult version. And ridiculously, decadently delicious.

Served warm, they're sinful. And if you can't find black cherry, I bet raspberry preserves would be heaven!

Shared at On the Menu Monday