Wednesday, 9 March 2011

Mingle Muffins

After setting out to make some sort of cake for dessert with the new bag of sour cherries I randomly picked up last week, I then stumbled by accident across this recipe on the Good to Know website and decided to make muffins instead! Still need to use those cherries though…

These are amongst the easiest muffins I have made and they taste great too! The top of them reminds me a little of that lovely crackle you get on good brownies! They are soft textured and smell so delicious when baking, I could barely wait long enough for them to cool down, just so I could test one of course….the remaining muffins didn’t hang around long!

I was also happy in that I finally got to use my beautiful new gingham muffin cases that I picked up recently from Sainsbury's:


The original recipe calls for plain chocolate chunks but after eating our way through far too many Mingles (mint chocolates) since Christmas, we were left with lots of the dark red ones, which are fondant filled and I decided to use them instead. They worked a treat in the muffins, adding a delicious minty twist and I am now looking at the tub of Celebrations with a curious mind….

Ingredients

250g self-raising flour
25g cocoa powder (I use extra dark Polish cocoa)
2tsp baking powder
125g caster sugar
50g light muscavado sugar
175ml milk
2 large eggs, beaten
100ml sunflower oil
12 Mingles, roughly chopped into small chunks
1tsp vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 170ºC/ 150o fan (375ºF, gas mark 5).
Makes 12

Line a 12-hole deep muffin tray with paper muffin cases.

Sift together the flour, cocoa and baking powder; stir in the sugar. Add the remaining ingredients and mix lightly together - do not over beat the mixture

Spoon the mixture into the prepared cases. Bake for approximately 20 mins or until golden and springy to the touch. Leave for 10 minutes in the tray and then transfer to a wire rack to cool down.


I’ve also submitted this recipe to the Bake Off over at the Versatile Vegetarian Kitchen, you can see the full round up here on the 11th March.

You can also see my muffins over at Sweets for a Saturday along with a whole host of delicious sweet treats.


14 comments:

  1. Anne, Yes. Thanks. Muffins look awesome.

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  2. Marvelous idea Anne - they look GOOD!

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  3. Mmmm these look really tasty. Funnily enough we are always left with the red Mingles, too! Will keep this in mind next time we get a tin. Love the cases, too!

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  4. These look nice not a fan of mingles but I LOVE the gingham cases

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  5. Oh that's a great idea. I have half a box of After Eights which none of us like I wonder...

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  6. They sounds lovely. Love the muffin cases too - I'll have to look out for those.

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  7. These look delish! I love funky flavoured muffins! Always interesting to see how they turn out x

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  8. I love Mingles, so these sound great - did the Mingles stay in chunks or just melt into the general mixture?

    I love finding interesting cupcake cases - yours look far more interesting than pedestrian white!

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  9. Love those cute little muffin cups you've got. The idea of putting mint chocolates into a muffin sounds like a super idea. I have a sweet treat linky party going on at my blog and I'd be delighted if you'd stop by and link your muffins up. http://sweet-as-sugar-cookies.blogspot.com/2011/03/sweets-for-saturday-8.html

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  10. Champa - thanks for letting me add them, glad you liked them :)

    Jan - thankyou, they tasted good too!

    Kim - glad we are not the only ones left with the dark red Mingles, these muffins are a great user up of them!

    Carol - Aren't they just so pretty! I couldn't resist buying them!

    Janice - love the sound of after eights! The dark red mingles are very similar as have the fondant filling, so definitely worth a try out at least!

    Helen - they also have some very cute polka dot ones too for fairy cakes :)

    Mias bakehouse - I do like to experiment with baking, doesn't always work but so glad these did!

    Mangocheeks - thankyou :)

    C - they sort of half melted into the mixture, so you had little chunks of dark choc, was good as they didn't sink and were nicely disbursed through the cake mix :)

    I am terrible for buying new cake cases, have a large bag full of different ones but these by far are my favourites!

    Lisa - Thankyou, I have entered them to your link :)

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  11. These sound delicious! Thanks for checking out my blog!

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  12. I'm sure these are YUMMY, but I wanted to tell you that I especially love the CUTE gingham liners!

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  13. I got a box of Mingles for Christmas, no way they were going to last long enough to bake with, we ate them in about half an hour! The muffins look gorgeous though. I have the same muffin cases :)

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Thanks for stopping by my kitchen! I love to hear your thoughts and comments on my recipes!

Anne

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