Raspberries & Chocolate Chip Muffins

Raspberries and chocolate chips seems like a nice combination for a muffin, wouldn't you? That's what I thought would be a perfect mix, although Louis seemed a little puzzled by my choice of ingredients for the muffins at the beginning. However, he soon changed his mind when he sank his teeth into one. *grin*

Imagine the tartness of raspberry, combined with the sweet, velvety smoothness of chocolates. Mmmmhhh.... and that was exactly how my raspberries and chocolate chip muffins turned out. Lovely with its cake-like texture, each bite into the muffin might give a sudden burst of the slight sourness of cooked raspberry, mingled with the bitter-sweet taste of chocolate.

This time around, I actually bought raspberries with the intention to make a raspberry and chocolate cake from Clothilde Dusoulier's Chocolate and Zucchini cookbook. However, the ingredients seemed altogether rather sinful and rich, as it was almost like a flourless fully-cook fondant au chocolat (aka warm chocolate cake), except that it has mashed raspberry added. Plus, I wasn't feeling too good for the last week on account of restless nights looking after a sick Faith, and that I myself was recovering from my bout of gastric/stomach flu.

Rather than letting the raspberries go to waste, I decided to use them for muffins, with the addition of some bitter-sweet chocolate chips. The recipe for the muffins were the same as my blueberries and apple muffins posted earlier, but replaced this time around with the 2 other ingredients.

Raspberries and Chocolate Chips Muffins

Makes 12 muffins

Ingredients:

250g plain flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp

180ml milk

1 egg

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

113g butter, at room temperature,

190g sugar

1 punnet raspberries (approx 170g, I think)

50g chocolate chips (approx cos I forgot to measure. I just threw in what seemed to be a good amount)

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 200C. Shift flour, baking powder and salt into a bowl and set aside.

2. In a separate bowl, blend milk, egg and vanilla extract.

3. In a stand mixer fitted with the paddle, cream together the butter and sugar until light and smooth in texture. Add the flour mixture in 3 separate additions, alternating with the wet ingredients in Pt (2). Then, increase speed to medium and mix until the batter is very smooth.

4. Fold the raspberries and chocolate chips into the batter, working gently and just long enough to distribute the ingredients evenly.

5. Divide the batter evenly amongst 12 muffins cups/moulds. Bake for about 18-20 minutes. Let muffins cool in the pans on a wire rack for 5 minutes before removing.

This time around, I poured some of the muffins into little disposable muffin cups. I think they looked cute! Between these and the blueberries and apple muffins, Louis like my latest muffins better. So do I, actually :)