Double Chocolate Chip Muffins

Double Chocolate Chip Muffins have a lot going on for them: obviously there is double the chocolate, but the addition of espresso powder takes them from good to great.  

Disclaimer:

"Muffin" is in the title, but it really should be called a breakfast cake. Why are we lying to ourselves? 

Double Chocolate Chip  Muffin Ingredients

• All Purpose Flour 
• Baking powder 
• Salt 
• Espresso powder 
• Dutch process cocoa powder 
• Sugar (brown and granulated) 
• Eggs 
• Neutral oil like Canola or Vegetable oil
• Vanilla Extract 
• Chocolate chips {semi sweet & dark}

A Note about the Cocoa Powder 

Natural Cocoa Powder,  like the kind that comes in that brown Hershey’s container- is simply dried unsweetened cocoa powder that has not had it’s natural acidic properties stripped. Hence the name “natural”. 

Dutch Process Cocoa Powder is dried unsweetened cocoa powder that has been treated with an alkaline agent to reduce its acidic properties. The resulting cocoa powder is less bitter. 

Why does the type of cocoa powder matter? 

Now I’m thinking back to the olden days when I took science classes.  Why the type of cocoa powder matters is because we need to choose the right leavening agent to interact with the specific type of cocoa powder.   Natural cocoa powder is acidic   Dutch Process Cocoa is neutral.  

Usually recipes that use natural cocoa powder call for baking soda because natural cocoa powder is acidic. {a base to correspond to the acid]. Most recipes that call for Dutch process cocoa call for baking powder or a combination of baking soda and baking powder. 

All of that science to say, for most recipes, natural and Dutch process cocoa are interchangeable. Notably, if a recipe requires more than 3 tablespoons of cocoa powder - the recipe may need to be modified to use the right leavening agent.  

For this recipe — no additional math is required. If you only have natural cocoa powder - use the same amount listed in the recipe. 

Special Equipment

These muffins don’t really require “special” equipment.  If you’re kitchen is stocked, you should have what you need: 

• A couple mixing bowls 
• Whisk 
• Flexible spatula 
• Giant scoop 
• 2 muffin tins
• Muffin liners 

Making these muffins is as easy as 1,2, 3, 4

1. Whisk all of the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, salt and cocoa powder) in a medium bowl. 
2. Dissolve the cappuccino powder in the milk and then stir together all of the wet ingredients. 
3. Stir the dry ingredients in with the wet ingredients and add in the chocolate chips. 
4. Full the muffin tins and bake 

Troubleshooting

Sometimes, despite our best efforts the muffins turn out kind of dry. A dry muffin is one of the most disappointing things ever.  If you find that your muffins are dry here are some places to troubleshoot: 

1. Did you over bake them?  I learned pretty quickly that my oven was running hot and I needed to recalibrate the oven.  If you want to learn more about how to recalibrate– check here. 
2. How did you measure the flour?  I love my kitchen scale because it makes it easy to make sure that I don’t use too much flour.  If you don’t use a kitchen scale, make sure you are spooning the flour into the measuring cup. If you drag the measuring cup into the flour you will almost always pull more flour than you need.
3. Are you using butter only?  Melted butter is dreamy– it gives so much flavor, but it doesn’t retain moisture exactly the same way that vegetable oil does.   Consider swapping out a couple tablespoons of oil to increase the moisture.

Alright. That’s what I got on Double Chocolate Chip muffins.  Let me know in the comments if you make these — don’t forget to tag me on Instagram @southernshellebakes I’d love to see them! 

Until next time, 

Richelle

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