Passionate Milk Chocolate

I have a short attention span so if we have conversations; don’t take it personally if my eyes start to wander. I’m listening; I just have trouble focusing after awhile.

It’s the same when it comes to most things I do. I usually jump onto a new activity for the fun of it and once it starts getting less fun, I’ll gladly throw in the towel and move along. So when I screwed up a carrot cake this morning and I felt compelled to bake something else because well, I wanted to, it once again reminded me that I actually love baking. I’ll stick with it, through thick icing and thin cream.

You feeling me?

Short attention spans must be a characteristic found in all dessertaholics though- how else did earl grey end up with chocolate or the divine union of sea salt, caramel and a pinch of pink pepper come about? I have this notion that these imaginative people just got quite bored and wondered “oooooooh, what does this doooo?”

Well, that was running through my head when I decided that I would be changing the original sunflower seed muffin idea into a milk chocolate muffin, slathered with passionfruit icing.

Milk Chocolate Muffins with Passionfruit Icing

1/3 cup  vegetable oil
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup caster sugar
2 large eggs
1/3 cup buttermilk
1 cup GF flour blend
¼ cup + 2 tbsp almond meal
½ teaspoon baking soda
¾ cup milk chocolate buttons (chopped roughly)*

Preheat oven to 170 °C. Line a muffin tin with 7 liners**.

In the bowl of a KitchenAid fitted with a whisk attachment, beat the two eggs and sugars together until double in volume and light. Add in the oil and beat until well emulsified.

Sift the flour mix and baking soda together. Add the almond meal in.

Mix in half the flour mix into the egg mix, add in half the milk. Mix well.

Add in the remaining flour mix and milk and mix until completely homogenized.

Add in the chocolate buttons, mix and divide evenly into the 7 liners. It will be pretty full but you want nice rounded, tall muffins and these don’t rise a lot.

Bake for 20-25 minutes or until a skewer inserted comes out clean. Cool and top with passionfruit icing and a drizzle of melted milk chocolate.

Passionfruit Icing

Pulp of 1 passionfruit
2-3 cups of icing sugar
2-3 tsp of warm water

Strain the juice of the passionfruit into a bowl. You should have 2-3 tbsp of juice. Add in 2 cups of icing sugar and whisk to combine. Thin with a little warm water if desired, or thicken with more icing sugar. The icing should fall off a fork with much effort (not very runny)

*I didn’t chop my chocolate buttons so they sunk to the bottom of the muffins.