What’s the difference between a muffin and a cupcake?
Hint: It’s no longer “frosting”.
After a special request for chocolate chip muffins, I pulled out The Muffin Book. Normally, I don’t feel compelled to make a recipe as-is, but after I saw that it called for a chocolate ganache icing, I felt it would just be wrong somehow to not honor the author’s original vision. (Actually, that’s not true. I didn’t have any milk chocolate chips, so I just bumped up the amount of semi-sweet.)
The difference, by the way, is generally about double the quantity of sugar, and double the quantity of fat, which is what produces the moister, softer “crumb” of a cake.
Iced Chocolate Chip Muffins
- 2 cups self-rising flour
- 1/2 cup sugar, plus a tablespoon for dusting
- 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
- 2 eggs
- 1 cup milk
- 1/3 cup melted butter
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Preheat oven to 400. In one bowl, sift flour, then mix in sugar and chocolate chips. In another bowl, whisk eggs, milk, melted butter and vanilla extract. Combine the two bowls, and mix until just combined, about 15 strokes. Fill your muffin tins 2/3s full, then dust with granulated sugar. Bake for 15-20 minutes.
Chocolate ganache
- 1/2 cup chocolate chips
- 1/4 cup heavy cream
- 1 1/2 tablespoons butter
Combine in a double boiler, and stir until smooth. Chill until firm before spreading on the muffins.
Adapted from The Muffin Book, which, like all good baking books, does provide measures in weight for those of you who are more hardcore than me.
