Christmas Calendar 2017 - Chocolate cherry muffin

Using the flavour combination of chocolate and cherry from the chocolate cherry trifle, which we made at the Christmas afternoon tea course at Denman, I decided to bake some chocolate cherry muffins for the annual Christmas Coffee, as I had some cherries left-over from the ris a la mande cheesecake.

I used a muffin recipe from the baking book "A piece of cake" as starting point, which I when adjusted to my purpose.

Chocolate cherry muffin:  - 15-20 muffins

• 150 g butter
• 2 dl sour cream, 18% fat
• 1 organic lemon - only the zest
• 2 eggs
• 150 g sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla sugar
• 165 g wheat (cake) flour
• 55 g cocoa powder
• 2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 pinch of salt
• 100 g dark chocolate - finely chopped
• 15-20 cherries from cherry sauce

1. Heat up the oven to 200'C.
2. Melt the butter, afterwards add into the sour cream and lemon zest, stir together.
3. Add egg, sugar and vanilla sugar into a mixing bowl, whip it light and foamy.
4. Add in the cocoa powder, wheat flour, salt and baking powder. Mix it together into a homogeneous mass.
5. Stir in the chopped chocolate pieces.
6. Fill up the muffins half way with the dough.
7. Place a cherry into the muffin dough, fill more muffin dough on top, so the cherry is hidden.
8. Bake the muffins at 200'C for 15 minutes.
9. Check, that the muffin is baked, before removing it from the oven.
10. Cool down the muffin, before making the muffins out of the silicone form.