Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Chocolate Lava Muffins



While googling a recipe for chocolate muffins, I came across this one for Chocolate Lava Muffins by Alton Brown. And it looked easy enough, plus I had all the ingredients (and a new silicone 6-muffin pan) at hand. So I gave it a shot and boy, was it a good one.

However, I failed to notice the part which said "Beat at high until batter is creamy and lightens in color, approximately 4 minutes." And without a mixer, it is quite a chore to beat the batter by hand. The recipe also didn't say how long to chill it for, but I guess the point of it is to cool the batter so it results in that molten centre. (The batter actually keeps for a couple of days in the fridge perfectly fine, which I did as 12 muffins are way too much for 2 people - we waited till 2 more guinea pigs came to the apartment for dinner on Presidents Day, where we started off with a chunky vegetable soup, garlic bread, and a tomato, mozzarella, cilantro salad. And ended with six chocolate lava muffins with vanilla ice-cream).

I also found that (at least for my oven) it required longer than the stated 10-11 minutes. At 11 minutes, the top of the muffin was still quite liquid, and I left it for another minute or so before removing it. However, removal was also not easy, especially with the second batch, which I had taken out after an extra minute (the first batch had two extra minutes and had a not-so-oozy centre). Looks like there needs to be some in-between time here - enough to get you a cake-like exterior and an oozy centre. Perhaps an extra 1 min 30 secs would do it?

I'll have to give it a try another day.

PS. Although Alton Brown says to use a semi-sweet chocolate chip, I used bittersweet, 60% cocoa chocolate chips from Ghiradelli.

3 comments:

Dawn said...

oh you know eugenie from my rgs 4/6 gang? she makes the best chocolate lava muffins! she learnt it from a class she attended and she made them for our boxing day party. the molten middle was lovely and just right. just letting u know in case u wanna pick up some tips from her. heh. but, well, you could always experiment yourself!

Anonymous said...

It looks good! I'm going to try it myself. But first, need to get a muffin tray..

RealLifeReading said...

Caedmon - well if she's willing to give the recipe, I'd like to give it a try!

xy - Get a silicone muffin tray! Those things are great!