Raspberry and dark chocolate muffins

The other day I stopped by Morrisons as they had a good deal on strong bread flour. We don't usually shop in Morrisons as it's a bit off our usual route, but I thought it was worth going out of my way to stock up on flour. But when I got there I realised everyone else had also thought it was a great deal as there was no discounted flour left on the shelf. I felt a bit silly leaving completely empty handed as I had gone out of my way to drive there so I bought a few punnets of raspberries which happened to be very good value for money. We were rather unlucky with our own raspberries this year as the birds ate most of them, I only managed to get a few very small tubs in the freezer. So we enjoyed these raspberries very much, and ate one of the punnets with some ripe sweet figs and ice cream for pudding. I decided to make the most of the second punnet so I divided it up between two recipes, one of them being these lovely raspberry and dark chocolate muffins. 

I used a recipe from a blog called My Happy Place which I pinned ages ago. I keep on pinning stuff, but very rarely actually go back to look at them, so I felt rather satisfied with myself when I found this recipe again last night on one of my pinterest boards and it was perfect to make as a quick and easy breakfast. It also is relatively low fat as there is no added fat in addition to what comes with the yogurt and chocolate. I also replaced some of the flour with whole wheat to add some fiber. I decided to make just half of the recipe, as me and a large number of muffins is just a bad idea. The original recipe says it will make 12 muffins, so I was expecting to make 6 out of the halved recipe. However, half the recipe actually resulted in 11 muffins, so I'm not exactly sure how gigantic the original muffins are (they don't look that big in the pictures). Hence, I also needed to bake them for a much shorter time.

Raspberry and dark chocolate muffins (makes 6-11 muffins):
1/2 cup plain yogurt (I used full fat, as I detest the low fat ones)
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla bean paste
1/4 cup plus 2 tbsp caster sugar
1 1/2 cups flour (I used 1 cup all purpose and 1 whole wheat)
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup raspberries cut into quarters
1/2 cup dark chocolate chips
a few teaspoons of caster sugar to sprinkle on top

The howto: 
Preheat oven to 175 degrees C (375 degrees F). Butter your muffin tins (or line with paper or silicone liners. I love my silicon muffin liners, they don't need to be prepped and the muffins always come out perfectly without sticking). Mix all ingredients except the raspberries and chocolate chips in a bowl until a smooth batter forms, don't overmix. Add raspberries and chocolate chips and gently incorporate into the batter. Spoon into muffin tins until about 3/4 full. Sprinkle lightly with caster sugar. Bake for 25 minutes if making smaller muffins (i.e. 11 from this batch), and 30-40 minutes for larger muffins (i.e. if you made 6 muffins from the batter).

The verdict:
I was surprised how fluffy and soft these muffins were, given that they are very low fat. Usually my experience with "healthy" muffins is that they end up very dense, particularly if you add whole wheat flour to them. But these were really light and very delicious. The caster sugar on top forms a nice crunchy crust. The slightly tart raspberries go so well with the gooey, sweet chocolate chips. I had to immediately freeze some of these, as I had no self control whatsoever around them. I also love these easy, one bowl bakes which only take a few minutes to whip up, and you can have fresh muffins on the table in just over half an hour. Perfect for those lazy weekend brunches when you want something scrummy without having to spend the whole day slaving away in the kitchen.