Chocolate Malted Muffins
Chocolate malted muffins? Chocolate for breakfast?
Okay, a muffin barely this side of cupcake isn’t exactly breakfast of champions. This said, the chocolate malted muffin’s nutrition profile may be improved by exchanging chocolate chips for dried fruits or nuts. Consider dried cranberries, currants, or a handful of almonds. Frozen strawberries or cherries would also work nicely here, provided they’re blotted dry before going into the batter.
You can also take an elegantly minimalist approach and bake the muffins plain.
If you add fruit or nuts, consider your extract. Vanilla is the little black dress of baking; it goes with everything. Almond extract also pairs well with most flavors; do make sure the people you’re baking for don’t have nut allergies. It’s never wise to sicken your audience. Orange extract makes a nice contrast to chocolate’s richness; if you cannot find it, orange liqueur is useful replacement. Cherry liqueur is another delicious variation.
The extract pictures were lousy.
When I say “malt,” I am referring to the powdered drink mixture. It is sold in plain and chocolate flavors. Look for it in your market’s baking aisle or where the hot chocolate is sold.
A word about dairy: you can be abstemious and use milk, or use richer products like yogurt, creme fraiche, or heavy cream.
If you are the type who loves cookies and milk, you’ll love chocolate malted muffins with milk. If, like me, you began using the family coffeemaker at age nine, it’s black coffee and a muffin. Chocolate malted muffins are good for breakfast, brunch, or as a late afternoon snack.
Chocolate Malted Muffins
This recipe would not exist without The Joy of Cooking by Rombauer, Rombauer, and Becker and Dorie Greenspan, whose books introduced me to the idea of baking with malt powder.
Prep time: about 15 minutes. Baking time: 15-20 minutes
Yield: 12 muffins
Please read notes, below, before baking. You will need two large bowls and a twelve well muffin tin to bake these muffins. I always crack eggs into a separate small bowl, lest there be shell pieces or a bad egg.
Bowl one:
12 ounces/1 1/2 cups/400 grams AP flour
1/3 cup/100 grams unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon fine or sea salt
1 tablespoon unflavored malted milk powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda (see notes, below, about dairy)
Bowl two:
1 stick/8 tablespoons/1/2 cup/4 ounces/113 grams unsalted butter, melted
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla or other extract, as discussed below
1/2 cup-1cup/60-128 grams sugar, depending on your preference for sweetness
1 cup/128ml dairy: this can be milk, half-and-half, yogurt, creme fraiche, or heavy cream
3/4 cup/100 grams addition of your choice: chocolate chips, chopped nuts, or dried fruits like currants or cranberries, or frozen berries like cherries or raspberries, blotted dry.
Preheat the oven to 400F/200C
Prepare a 12-well muffin pan either by buttering it lavishly or, as I do, spraying it thoroughly with nonstick vegetable-based spray. I normally avoid this product, but washing muffin pans is a hassle, and the spray I use purports to be organic. I put the pan in the sink while spraying, ensuring easy clean-up. You can also use recyclable paper muffin-tin liners.
In bowl one, mix the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, salt, malted drink powder, and baking soda, if using.
Melt the butter, either stovetop or as I do, in a Pyrex microwave-safe measuring cup. I do it in 10-second bursts, because cleaning exploded butter off the inside of a microwave isn’t much fun.
Once the butter is melted, set it aside to cool.
Now to the second bowl:
Add the cracked eggs, vanilla extract, sugar, and dairy. Mix until just blended. Pour in the butter and stir well–you don’t want scrambled eggs.
Now tip the contents of bowl number one into bowl number two. Add the chocolate chips/dried fruit/nuts, if using, and stir with a large, sturdy spoon or spatula until the muffin mixture is just blended. A few lumps are okay.
Spoon the muffin mixture equally into the wells of the muffin pan and bake 15-20 minutes. Rotate the pan midway for more even baking.
The muffins are done when a tester comes out clean, save going into a chip.
Allow muffins to cool completely on a rack, then remove from pan. Store in cake tin for 24 hours. After that, refrigerate muffins in a ziploc-style plastic bag or other lidded storage container up to four days. Chocolate malted muffins freeze well up to three months.
Notes:
This recipe allows a range of dairy products, from regular milk to yogurt, creme fraiche, half-and-half, and heavy cream. If you use anything heavier than milk, add the baking soda to ensure the muffins rise properly.
While you can use skimmed milk in the recipe, it will result in a dry muffin with a drastically reduced keeping time.
As noted in the post, you may add numerous items to the muffins, including chocolate chips, nuts, and fresh or dried fruits. I added about 3/4 of cup/100 g of chocolate chips to one batch. I left another batch plain.
Nuts are always improved by warming in a low oven or over low heat. Keep a close eye on them, as they go from warmed to burned in seconds.
Malted milk drink mixtures are sold in plain and chocolate flavors. You want the plain type.
You can bake the muffins more or less sweet. If you plan to add chocolate chips or fruit, bear in mind they bring sugar to the recipe.
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