Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Elle's Mexican Hot Chocolate Muffins

The stuff that makes chocolate sing: clockwise, from top: chipotle chile powder, cayenne, cocoa powder, ancho chile powder, cinnamon, brown sugar, and Hershey's Special Dark cocoa powder.


This is another WONDERFUL recipe from Grace's roundup for her Cinnamon Celebration. All the recipes are so irresistible, I've tried several.

I made Elle's fantastic Mexican Hot Chocolate Muffins over the weekend for DS to take to his band (Public Broadcast) rehearsal on Saturday, and they were a HUGE hit! The band was graciously hosted by Barbara, drummer Noah's mom, who loved the muffins and asked for the recipe. So I wanted to be sure to share it!

Oh, I almost forgot! I went to see Drew the Hair God at AlterEgo on Saturday afternoon and, since our birthdays are just 2 days apart, I of course had to bring him some muffins. (True, our birthdays are in June, but you can never celebrate too much!) Actually, I just wanted to bring him some muffins because he's an all around good guy. Drew also LOVED the muffins! Plus he gave me a discount on my hair. Coincidence?? I think not. These muffins were made for bribin'... or something like that :). But seriously, if you live in the Raleigh area, and are looking for a new Hair God, Drew is fabulous!

I've been greatly enjoying Elle's blog, Elle's New England Kitchen. (Having lived in New England for 71/2 years, it's especially fun for me!) Elle has such a wonderful collection of recipes. If you haven't had a chance to visit, you really should stop by!

OK, Barbara, and Drew: this is for you!

Since trying Kat's (A Good Appetite) amazing Dark Chocolate Azteca Cupcakes, I've been unable to resist playing with the chocolate-chile-yowza!-hot-ooooh!-sweet! combination.
So I made some adjustments to Elle's original recipe, which is genius in and of itself, plus easy to make.

First, get your dry ingredients together in a bowl.
Flour, brown sugar, baking soda, salt, cocoa, and cinnamon.

I added extra cinnamon, using 2 t. instead of the 1 1/2 t. in Elle's recipe, plus a few other little goodies: 1/2 t. ancho chile powder, and 1/4 t. cayenne. (Wish I'd added more cayenne!) I also found it would have been an excellent idea to sift the brown sugar before adding it to the dry mixture, or alternatively, to give it a few whirls in the food processor first. It lumped on me, and I ended up sifting everything.

Then, mix together the wet ingredients, butter, canola oil, eggs, vanilla and milk. (I used 3/4 buttermilk instead, and dissolved 1/4 t. baking soda in it.)


Mix it all up (but not too much, we don't want tough muffins!) and add your chocolate chips (sadly, I had only 1 c. left in my bag, rather than the 1 1/4 c. called for. But it still came out delicious! Doesn't it look like it's going to be delicious?)


Next, mix up your streusel ingredients in a bowl: sugar, flour, cocoa, cinnamon (again, I used 2 t. instead of 1 1/2 t.)

and then add the melted butter to make it all nice and crumbly. I forgot to take a picture of that :(

Then fill your muffin tins. I must have done something different here, because this recipe is supposed to make 1 dozen muffins. I lined the tin with paper muffin cups, and filled them 2/3 full-- and I had to get out a second tin! I ended up with 2 dozen muffins. Which was great, since there were more to share, but I'm not sure why I had twice as many muffins as I should have!

Then top the batter with the streusel mixture. If you ask me, the streusel is what makes these muffins so wonderful! DS disagrees, he says, no, chocolate chips. Well, they're good too!

And bake. Elle says 17 minutes and 350F, which was exactly perfect.
Here are the streusel-topped muffins going into the oven:


And here they are, all done!! :)

Hmmm.... they kinda look the same, before and after, don't they? I promise these are baked! I guess the streusel makes them look very similar.

Elle's muffins came out much prettier (See below).

Next time, I think I would just use foil muffin cups on a baking sheet and dispense with the muffin tins altogether. Why? Because then I can make sure every crumb of streusel stays put on its appointed muffin, since I won't be levering the muffins out of the tin with the handle of a teaspoon and scattering streusel everywhere. SO sad. Some of the streusel fell on the counter, so of course, I had to eat it. That's a rule, you know. ;)

I was thinking about adapting these into some kind of spicy streusel brownie, but haven't got very far with that. Cupcakes and muffins are really so much fun to make and to eat!

Elle's Mexican Hot Chocolate Muffins are one terrific recipe: don't miss it!

Mexican Hot Chocolate Muffins

My inspiration for these came from of course, Mexican Hot ...

See Mexican Hot Chocolate Muffins on Key Ingredient.

9 comments:

  1. Karen- I have been eyeballing the same recipe.. great minds.. anyway, they look to die for and am glad to have your review! They are on my to do list.

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  2. Donna, you are gonna love them! Yes, we seem to be on the same wavelength these days! Let me know how they turn out. :) K

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  3. Karen, thank you so much for your great review and such kind words! I love. love, love the extra spices you added. Genius!

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  4. Hi Karen,
    Thank you so much for the Sisterhood Award, it was really nice and uplifting to receive it.
    I am been having the winter blues lately.
    I need chocolate therapy, send muffins! =)
    Saludos!

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  5. These look terrific!! Thanks, we are always looking for great new desserts! Thanks for following, I look forward to getting to know your blog too!

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  6. Hi, Marilyn--
    I am so glad you enjoyed the award! We can all use some light these winter days! I recommend that you self-medicate as much as possible with chocolate and send yourself some beautiful flowers! When your hubby comes home, say, THANKS for the beautiful flowers! ;)

    Hi, Elle- Thanks so much for stopping by! My DS is asking me to make more muffins, he LOVES THEM!! Thanks for your kind words :) I am just CRAVING chocolate and chile spice these days.

    Hi, ChefBliss-- It made my day to see I had another follower, thank you so much for following! I've been enjoying reading your blog. Definitely try these muffins, they are terrific! :) Thanks for visiting :)

    -Karen

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  7. I love that you put chipotle together with chocolate. The muffins look awesome.
    I have some awards for you on my blog. :)

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  8. get cookin' on those streuseled brownies--i can't wait to try 'em! these are delicious muffins, and i agree with you about the combination of chocolate and spice. i'm glad you're getting some use out of my round-up. :)

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  9. I love all the spices and chocolate!!! What a great idea!!!

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