Triple Chocolate Muffins

Two weekends ago, I was kind of sad.  Why?, you may ask.  Well, I had these well-laid plans to hang out with Joy the Baker at her Brooklyn book signing that Saturday.  Fast forward to Friday afternoon, when I learned that we were supposed to RSVP to the event.  Say what?  Let's fast forward a little bit more to the following morning when I realized that the entire Twitter-verse was also going to the book signing.  Ahhhh!

In the end, I decided not to go because 1) I'm not really a fan of waiting around for 4 hours to get a book signed and 2) I had only allotted two hours to spend at the book signing before having to be somewhere else later that afternoon.

OK, let's be real.  I would totally have waited 4 hours.  But in all honesty, I really did have somewhere to be later that day and I didn't want to face the disappointment of having to leave early without getting my book signed or meeting JTB.

It had been my plan for a few weeks to whip up a recipe out of Joy's new cookbook, but I hadn't gotten around to it.  This past weekend, I ended up staying over at my friends' place for the Easter holiday.  On Sunday morning, we woke up and enjoyed leftover sangria and Joy's Chocolate Chocolate Chocolate Chip Muffins.  I personally like to call them Triple Chocolate Muffins.  It's faster.  Man, these things were good.  Both the sangria and the muffins.  And yes, this was breakfast.  No judgements, OK?

Oh, speaking of "no judgements", I totally did not have my DSLR handy and so this post is also a test of my iPhone camera picture-taking skills.

Triple Chocolate Muffins

slightly adapted from Joy The Baker's Chocolate Chocolate Chocolate Chip Muffins

yields 12-16 muffins

Print Recipe

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
• 4 ounces semisweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 rounded teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1 cup dark chocolate chips
• 1/4 cup handful semisweet chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup white chocolate chips

1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Line muffin tins with paper or foil liners.  Set aside for later.

2) Create a double boiler: Place a heatproof bowl over a pot with simmering water.  Make sure the bowl does not touch the water.  

3) Add the butter and coarsely chopped semisweet chocolate to the bowl over the double boiler.  While the butter and chocolate melt, stir to combine.  Once melted, remove the bowl from the pot and set aside to cool slightly.

4) In a medium bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients: flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

5) Sprinkle the brown sugar into the butter and chocolate mixture.  Whisk to combine.

6) Pour the eggs, buttermilk, and vanilla into the chocolate mixture as well.  Whisk until well blended.

7) Add the flour mixture into the chocolate mixture, all at once.  Use a spatula to fold the flour mixture into the chocolate until you can no longer see bits of flour.

8) Fold the chocolate chips (dark and semisweet) into the batter.

9) Ladle the batter into the muffin tins.  The liners should be filled about 3/4 of the way.

10) Bake for 16-18 minutes, or until a toothpick or knife inserted into the muffins comes out clean.  Remove the muffins from the oven and allow to cool for ~5 minutes.

11) While the muffins are cooling, place white chocolate in another heatproof bowl over the same double boiler used earlier.  Stir while the white chocolate chips are melting.

12) Once the white chocolate is melted, drizzle liberally over the muffins.  These muffins are best served slightly warm, so the chocolate chips in the muffins are still gooey.

I didn't intend to adapt this muffin recipe.  In truth, my adaptations were purely accidental.  I blame it on the previous night's ingestion of sangria.  I ended up forgetting to add some of the semi-sweet chocolate to the double broiler. So to compensate, I added more chocolate chips to the batter before baking it.  I also make my own buttermilk and since I make it in 1 cup increments...guess how much was added to the batter before I realized I was supposed to add only a portion of that?

In the end though, this batter was very forgiving to me.  It appears that even though I tried to screw up the recipe a few times, the muffins still came out of the oven soft and cake-like, with chocolate oozing out of them.  The white chocolate was, literally and figuratively, icing on the cake.  They put these muffins over the edge by adding just a tad bit of extra sweetness in the end.  This is just how I like it.

Here are my takeaways from the past week or so:

-  JTB really knows how to throw down some muffins. I'm pretty sure I knew this already though.

- You need to go out and get Joy's cookbook for yourself.  Why don't you have it already?!

-  I need to make these muffins happen again.  Perhaps I will actually follow the recipe this time.