SURPRISE!!! Here's a muffin recipe the whole family will love. And if they don't, you ask? My suggestion would be to seek out new family members. I am assuming (you know what they say about assuming, though) that the name of these muffins comes from the "surprise" chocolate chip-peanut butter middle when you bite into these. These look like just another muffin on the outside yet taste like no other muffin you've ever eaten on the inside. We all know how delicious the chocolate-peanut butter combination is (we do all know this, right?), and it really makes this muffin a winner. The maple extract adds a nice warm flavor, too, and becomes more pronounced the longer these muffins sit. For good measure, the oat bran adds that whole grains goodness everybody's talking about these days. (What? Not everybody is talking about whole grains these days?) These muffins are delicious and not overly sweet, even with the chocolate-peanut butter middle. I got this recipe from The Spirit of Christmas Cookbook - Volume 2. Don't wait until Christmas to make these, though. Go bake a batch today and let me know what you think.
Surprise Muffins
Source: The Spirit of Christmas Cookbook - Volume 2, p. 20
1/2 cup smooth peanut butter
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup oat bran
1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1 cup milk
1/3 cup vegetable oil
2 eggs
1 teaspoon maple extract
Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. In a small bowl, combine peanut butter and chocolate chips; set aside.
In a medium bowl, combine flour, bran, brown sugar, baking powder and salt. In a small bowl, whisk milk, oil, eggs and maple extract. Make a well in the center of dry ingredients and add milk mixture; stir just until moistened. Spoon about 2 tablespoons batter into each cup of a greased muffin pan. Spoon about 2 teaspoons peanut butter mixture over batter in each cup. Spoon remaining batter over peanut butter mixture, filling each cup three-fourths full. Bake 15 to 18 minutes or until muffins pull away from sides of pan. Remove from pan and cool completely on a wire rack.
Store in an airtight container. Muffins may be served at room temperature or reheated. To reheat, cover and bake in a preheated 350 degree oven 5 to 8 minutes or until heated through. (These reheat well in the microwave, too. Just wrap a muffin in a paper towel then cook on HIGH 100% power for 30 seconds).
Yield: 12 muffins
3 comments:
These look so good and I hope when I make them they turn out as nice as yours did. Where did you get maple extract?
Lauren :)
(I deleted the first reply to you, so I'm going to try again.)
Hi, Lauren!!! I got the maple extract at a health food store when I was visiting my parents down in Florida. I have seen it here at Whole Foods, too. Here's a link to the kind I have if you can't find it where you live or if you want to order it online:
http://www.frontiercoop.com/dspCmnPrd.php?p=p&cn=Maple%20Flavor&ct=ssbfbf
Please let me know if you make the muffins and what you think of them. You could use vanilla extract in place of the maple extract, but it won't have that nice maple taste which really adds depth and flavor to this recipe, though.
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