Pecan & Chocolate Muffins

Pecan & Chocolate Muffins

Our dear friends the Petro's have a newborn baby. It's hard to make our usual dinner parties with the babies schedule so we made a date for Sunday brunch. 

This week I have been assigned to clean out the freezer. A shockingly large portion of our freezer is filled with Costco sized bags of nuts. So pecans were an inspiration for the menu; Carrot Quinoa Pecan pancakes, parfaits with fruit and pecan granola and pecan muffins! =) 

These little muffins turned out delicious!!

I keep several bags of Ghirardelli bittersweet chocolate chips on hand. (I try to stock up on them if I see them go on sale in the grocery store.) For the chocolate in this recipe I just chopped up the chips. This gives them a more even consistency through the muffins. 

Sifting the flour, baking soda and salt together. I put my sifter on top of a large bowl add the ingredients, then stir it around with a fork so the baking soda and salt  evenly distributed throughout the flour. Then I keep running the fork in circles until everything is sifted into the bowl. 

After you make up the batter. I use a big spatula to fold in the chocolate. 

I don't actually own a regular sized muffen pan. I usually make these mini loafs of different banana bread but, it works great for big muffins too. 

As a taste test I left a couple of the muffins without pecan topping. 

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups flour
2 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
3/8 teaspoon salt
2 1/2oz pecans, finely ground
2/3 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1/4 cup maple syrup
1 cup milk
4 tablespoons butter, melted
3 1/2 oz. bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped into very small peices
chopped pecans, to decorate

Tools

mini baking loaf pan (bake 25 minutes)
or
12 cup muffin pan lined with paper cups (bake 18-20 minutes)

Instructions 

Preheat oven to 400 degrees

Sift the flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl, then stir in the ground pecans and sugar. Put the egg, maple syrup mixture into the dry ingredients, then fold in the chocolate pieces.

Spoon the muffin mixture into your pain or caper cases, and sprinkle the surface of each muffin with the extra chopped pecans.

Bake in the preheated oven for 18-20 minutes until risen and golden. Let cool in the pan for 1 minute, then turn out onto a wire rack. Eat warm. The muffins should be eaten within 24 hours or left to cool, then frozen for up to one month.