Chocolate Mocha Muffins...my mojo is an 'it' for now!!

Chocolate Mocha Muffins…another early morning…my mojo has returned as a changed person…it wants me to be up and about before the crack of dawn and it wants me to bake!!....yet to decide whether I was better off without it for sometime…and yes, please do note that I am referring to it as an ‘it’ and not as a ‘him’ or a ‘her’ till the time I decide whether I will be able live with this one in peace or not!! J

Chocolate Mocha Muffins

Ingredients:

Wet Ingredients:

• Eggs, Large, 2 (I use Kegg’s eggs, abt 55gms each)
• Buttermilk, 120 ml/½ cup (I use 120 ml milk and add ½ tbsp vinegar to it, keep it aside for 10 minutes before starting on the recipe)
• Vegetable Oil, 120 ml/ ½ cup
• Black coffee or Espresso, at room temperature , 60 ml/ ¼ cup (I use 60 ml water and mix it with 1 ½ tsp instant coffee powder) 
• Vanilla extract, 5 ml/1 tsp 

Dry Ingredients:

• Regular All Purpose flour/Maida, 130 gms/1 cup 
• Whole Wheat Flour/Atta, 95 gms/ ¾ cup
• Unsweetened cocoa powder, 25 gms/ ¼ cup) (I use Hershey’s natural unsweetened)
• Baking powder, 2.5 gms/½ tsp
• Baking soda, 5 gms/1 tsp
• Light Brown Sugar, 205 gms/1 cup
• Salt, ¼ tsp
• Chocolate chips, semi sweet, cappuccino, or white chocolate chips, 180 gms/1 cup (I use semisweet chocolate chips)
• Pecans/Walnuts/Almonds etc, coarsely chopped, ½ cup            (optional, I skipped this time)

Topping: (optional)

• Granulated white sugar, 1 tbsp
• Ground Cinnamon, ½ tsp (I skip cinnamon and only use sugar)

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 190 degrees C.

Butter the muffin tray or line with paper liners.

In a large bowl, sieve in both the flours, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, sugar and salt Mix in the chocolate chips. If using nuts, add in at this stage.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the eggs, buttermilk, oil, coffee and vanilla extract.

Now fold in the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients.

Stir only till the ingredients are combined – overzealous mixing will result in tough muffins and you don’t want that (and hence muffins recipes are perfect for lazy cooks like me).

Using an ice cream scoop or two table spoons, evenly fill in the muffin cups with the batter – till about ¾ full.

Sprinkle the granulated sugar on top of every muffin (if using cinnamon, first mix the cinnamon powder with the sugar)

Place in the middle rack of the oven and bake for about 18-20 minutes or till a toothpick inserted in the centre of the muffin comes out clean. (a minute or two extra if you want extra crunchy top, like we do)

Transfer to a wire rack and let cool for about 10 minutes before removing from the muffin tray.

Makes about 12–14 muffins.

(Recipe from joy of baking website)