Pop quiz.
Are you:
- feeling sad
- feeling hungry
- feeling happy
- wanting to put a smile on someone’s face
- facing a mountain of leftover chocolates from the most recent holiday
- a chocolate lover
- any combination of the above
If so, then read on. If not, stay with me here anyways, because today, you will find love in a muffin.
Picture it: a small, tender, not too sweet muffin punctuated with chunks of Toblerone throughout the body, topped with a Toblerone spiked frosting. Are you still with me here? Oh, good. Did I mention you can use other types of candy bars? And that, at the end of the day, you’re still just making a batch of muffins (relatively easy and foolproof, on the scale of baking complexity). This, my friend, is a muffin with benefits. And now, it’s going to become your muffin with benefits.
Mmm, chocolate.
You see, I was facing a dilemma. I bought way too much chocolate for the holiday season. I do this every year, but somehow, I manage to forget how much is too much and get stuck with a ton of leftover chocolate after each holiday. Halloween, Christmas, Valentine’s day, Easter. I just go over board.
Remember, it’s still a muffin, so don’t over mix the batter!
So when a co-worker recently asked me if I was going to post a recipe that uses leftover chocolate from the holiday season, I immediately said yes! Then I started sifting through the dozens of recipes I’ve accumulated that call for chopped candy bars in the recipe. It took me a moment, but I found it. Actually, I found a few. So I had to narrow it down to one choice.
It was a tough decision, but I settled (happily) on this little number, made a few adjustments, baked it, ate it, and now proudly serve it to you. This recipe started out life as Signe Johanssen’s Daim Chocolate Muffins, from her fantastic baking book, Scandilicious Baking. But it ended up turning into Chantal’s Toblerone Chocolate Muffins. Because that’s what I had still lying about from the excessive stash of chocolates I purchased this past Christmas.
Time to make frosting out of Toblerone. Heavenly.
While I haven’t tried the original version (Daim bars are difficult to find in my neck of the woods), my Toblerone version scored a hit. The nougat forms crispy little pockets within the muffin, and gives that yummy candy bar crunch throughout. The addition of a bit of coffee intensifies the chocolatey-ness of the muffin and frosting, and takes it from really good to sublime. What’s not to love?
Lovely to look at, lovely to eat.
These are so good, I’m sure they can cure bouts of depression. Or a broken heart. At the very least, they make for a momentous mid-day morning coffee break. Try them, even if you don’t fall under one of the categories in the pop quiz above. You won’t regret it.
This was the sacrificial taste test muffin. Passed with flying colours!
Most candy bar chocolate will work well in this recipe, so it's a great recipe to have around after the holiday season, when you've got a bowl full of leftover chocolates to get rid of quickly!
Ingredients
- For the muffins:
- 3 eggs
- 1/2 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
- 1 3/4 cup all purpose flour
- 3 tbsp cocoa powder
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp baking soda
- 1/4 tsp kosher salt
- 4 oz plain or Greek yogurt
- 2 oz whole milk
- 1/4 cup melted butter
- 1 tsp instant coffee
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 6 oz Toblerone, roughly chopped
- For the frosting:
- 4 oz semi sweet or dark chocolate
- 1/4 cup butter
- 1 tsp instant coffee
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 3/4 cup icing sugar
- 4 oz Toblerone, finely chopped
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400F. Line 12 muffin cups with paper liners, or spray the cups with cooking spray.
- Whisk the eggs and brown sugar together in a large bowl until the sugar is completely dissolved.
- In a separate bowl, combine the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
- Add the yogurt, milk and melted butter to the sugar/egg mixture.
- In a small bowl, combine the instant coffee with the vanilla and 1 tbsp water. Microwave for 10 seconds to dissolve the coffee. Add the coffee mixture to wet ingredients.
- Dump the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients, and stir very lightly. Add the chopped chocolate, and stir just until combined.
- Scoop the mixture into the prepared muffin pan, then bake for 15-18 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the centre of a muffin comes out clean. The muffin tops will have risen well.
- Remove from the oven and let cool completely.
- To make the glaze, over a double boiler, melt the chocolate and butter.
- Dissolve the instant coffee and vanilla extract with 4 tsp of water, and warm in the microwave for a few seconds to dissolve the coffee.
- Pour this mixture into the chocolate. Whisk until fully incorporated, and then add the icing sugar. Stir until all lumps are gone, then add the finely chopped chocolate and stir until combined.
- Frost the cooled muffins with the frosting. You may have a bit of frosting left over. If so, gobble it up with a spoon, or your fingers.
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