I love chocolate, I love cherries, and I love muffins – so clearly, this was a recipe for me. Today was my first day of third year (read: really long, boring orientation day) so yesterday I decided to make these for my breakfast this week. The recipe is from Williams Sonoma, and was originally created for making heart-shaped muffins in a silicone pan. Since I don’t have a pan like that, I decided to adapt the recipe for a regular muffin pan. I increased the baking time so they would be cooked through and also increased the baking temperature so that the muffins would rise more than in the picture on the WS website. I had one for breakfast this morning and it was delicious. Below is the recipe with my adaptations for a batch of regular-sized muffins.
Chocolate Cherry Muffins
Ingredients:
6 oz. bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
6 tbs. unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
½ cup all-purpose flour
½ tsp. baking powder
¼ tsp. salt
2 eggs
2/3 cup sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2/3 cup dried cherries, chopped if desired
Directions:
Preheat an oven to 350º F. Line a muffin pan with muffin cups or grease wells.
In a small heatproof bowl, combine the chocolate and butter. Set the bowl over but not touching simmering water in a small saucepan and melt the chocolate and butter, stirring occasionally, until smooth and blended. Let cool slightly.
In a small bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder and salt. In another bowl, whisk together the egg, sugar and vanilla until light in color and doubled in volume. Whisk in the chocolate mixture and then the flour mixture just until combined. Stir in the dried cherries. Divide the batter evenly among the wells of the prepared pan and smooth the tops. Bake until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out with a few moist crumbs attached, about 25-30 minutes.
Makes 7-8 muffins.
