Would you believe if I told you I’ve never baked chocolate muffins before? Haha…the closest thing to chocolate would be my banana with chocolate chip muffins and the peanut butter chocolate chips but other than that, I pretty much used fruits in my muffins rather than sweets. But I’m breaking that chain of absence and using sweets to the max by using, not chocolate chips, but actual chocolate bars chopped into chunks and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.
If you’re wondering what the peanut butter cups looked like, here are some pictures (below). I’ll admit one thing though, these cups are really NOT cheap here. I kinda skimped on the expenditure and bought the gift pack version which I gather they are mini cups rather than the normal sized ones.
I looked at the size of the peanut butter cups and thought it would go well as a center filling but then I underestimated the muffin batter. The muffins came out HUGE!!! Here is my muffin monster posing for scale (below);
Now I gather why the original creator didn’t line her muffins side-by-side on the muffin tray. She kinda arranged it zig-zag, I thought it was because the silicon tray was too small in itself and now I get that they tend to balloon-up while baking and really BALLOON! 🙂
Here are some photos of how they looked like when it came out of the oven (below). The colour looks a bit off because it was night time, indoors in the kitchen. But when I opened the oven door, I wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. The muffins were all ‘kissing’ each other on the sides and the side ones had a bit of spillage. My theory is that if the muffins got stuck to each other on the sides, it prevents them from poofing up nicely into domes. Also, I probably shouldn’t have filled it all the way to the brim but I wanted to utilise the 12 cups’ tray only rather than take out another muffin tray (hence I went and got a 16 cups this time so never had to face this space shortage again). But I leave the portion distribution up to you, they can go into 24 smaller cups or 14 really big cups but I would advise to use the tall, sturdy type muffin cups rather than the normal paper ones.
The taste however….was YUMMYLICIOUS!!! I took a cross section photo of the muffin (below) hoping to see the peanut butter cup but I guess it kinda disintegrated along with the batter or that it was almost the same colour. But you can definitely taste peanut butter in it which was mmmm-mmmm. A cup of hot beverage and you’re all good to go.
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CHOCOLATE CHUNK MUFFINS WITH REESE’S PEANUT
BUTTER CUPS RECIPE 
Adapted from zoomyummy
Ingredients;
3 cups all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons cocoa powder
1 1/2 tablespoons baking powder
1 1/4 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
170 gms butter, melted
2 eggs
200 gms dark chocolate, chunked
12 0r 14 Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, cold-hard
Steps;
1. Pre-heat your oven to 180C. Line tray with muffin cups. Sift and mix dry ingredients together; flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and sugar.
2. Mix eggs, milk, vanilla extract and melted butter together.
3. I had some odd and ends on dark chocolate in my fridge, I just took a pounder and whacked the daylights out of them to get 200 gms chunks.
4. Pour half the chocolate chunks into the dry mixture.
5. Unwrap the peanut butter cups and place one on each muffin cup. Better to do this while they’re hard and cold, if not they’re rather messy to deal with.
6. Mix the wet ingredients with the dry ingredients. Fold them gently until all the flour mixture has been incorporated. If there’s lumps, don’t worry, some lumps is fine.
7. Fill the muffin cups (with Reese’s inside) with the batter till about 3/4 full.
8. Sprinkle the rest of the chocolate chunks on top.
9. Bake for about 30 mins, it’s hard to see if they’re browning on top because of the chocolate colour so use the toothpick test. If you get chocolate stains on the toothpick but not the batter, it’s done. The tops should be slightly hardened and crisp but inside still moist and fluffy.
10. Cool muffins on a rack before eating.
11. They’re best eaten warm so if you freeze them, pop them in the microwave under medium heat for 1 min and they’re good as new.
Enjoy!
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