Chocolate and Peanut Butter Chip Muffins - #MuffinMonday

I was strolling through the supermarket when something caught my eye. FREE ITEM. Sales are rare so I'm always on the lookout for this rare treasure. I started to ignore this one, however, because it was on a bag of chocolate chips and I have an unopened Costco-sized bag of chocolate chips. But I grabbed the bags anyway and noticed that these weren't just chocolate chips. They were a mix of chocolate and peanut butter chips. I debated a bit and decided to get them.

To justify my purchase, I just needed to make some muffins and cookies as soon as possible. My baking kept being hijacked by other things but finally, we have muffins. Cookies will follow soon, I hope. 

Be sure to scroll down for more Muffin Monday recipes!

Chocolate and Peanut Butter Chip Muffins 

Yield: 8 muffins

Adapted from Sally's Baking Addiction

Ingredients 

187g flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
a pinch of nutmeg
1 egg
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup oil
2 tablespoons yogurt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
3/4 cup chocolate and peanut butter chips

Directions

Preheat oven to 425F.
Line a muffin tin with wrappers or grease well. 

Mix together flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg. In a separate bowl whisk together egg, sugar, milk, oil, yogurt and vanilla. 

Gently fold the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until just combined. Next fold in the peanut butter and chocolate chips. 

Scoop into the prepared muffin tin, filling each well to the top. 

Bake for 5 minutes then lower the oven to 350F. Bake another 10-15 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into a muffin comes out clean. 

• Blueberry Oatmeal Muffins from Palatable Pastime
• Chocolate and Peanut Butter Chip Muffins from Passion Kneaded
• Chocolate Chocolate Chip Muffins from Simply Inspired Meals
• Ham and Honey Mustard Muffins from Food Lust People Love
• Sweet Potato Muffins from Farm Fresh Feasts
• Whole Wheat Dinner Roll Muffins from Karen's Kitchen Stories

#MuffinMonday is a group of muffin loving bakers who get together once a month to bake muffins. You can see all our of lovely muffins by following our Pinterest board. Updated links for all of our past events and more information about Muffin Monday, can be found on our home page.

Plantain Tart

I was definitely looking forward to this Jamaican Dessert Challenge. I tried to make plantains tarts for Christmas but my crust was a no go. I put the filling on the stove and forgot about it and it was burnt in no time - ripe plantain has a lot of sugar! But along came March's challenge for me to try try again.

This time I used a flaky pastry. I followed this one on King Arthur Flour since it's the same ratio as the majority of flaky pastry recipes that I read. For the filling, I cooked a plantain in a bit water then added nutmeg and sugar to taste. Most recipes call for mashing the plantain with a fork. But I just tossed the plantain, sugar, and nutmeg in the blender. Plantain tart fillings are usually coloured red so I added a teeny weeny bit of food colouring.

I actually baked these one morning while I was getting ready for work. I grabbed a few of the hot tarts off the tray and snapped a quick picture. I fully intended on taking better pics when I got home but eating the tarts seemed more fun.

       

The crust on that plantain tart over there had a huge piece of shortening so that melted and left a hole. Did a torn crust affect the taste? Nope. I did forget to vent these but they were fine.

So no real recipe here. Just a guide. First, make the a batch of King Arthur's Flaky Pastry. 

Next, get a really ripe plantain and cook it in a bit of liquid. It cooks quickly so don't walk away. when the plantain is tender, remove and blend with sugar and nutmeg to taste. Start with a 1/4 teaspoon of nutmeg. For the sugar, start with a tablespoon. A really ripe plantain may not need any depending on your tastes. Add a few drops of red food colouring, if desired. 

Next, roll out the pastry to 9" x 17". Trim to 8" x 16" so that your edges are all even. Cut eight 4" x 4" squares. 

Add a scant tablespoon of plantain to the centre. Dampen the edges with water and then fold over. Use a fork to crimp the edges. It's usually folded into a triangle but I went with a rectangle. Place them on a parchment lined baking sheet and refrigerate while you preheat the oven. 

Preheat oven to 400 F. when the oven is ready, make vent holes in the tarts and brush with egg wash (1 egg plus a tablespoon of water). 

Bake 20-25 minutes or until the tarts are golden. 

Cool and devour. 

Jamaican Grater Cake

For February's Jamaican Desserts Challenge, we decided to tackle grater cake. Grater cake is grated coconut cooked in a sugar syrup until thick and then left to set. You also colour a portion a pretty pink. This was the most challenging one so far for me. I certainly didn't do myself any favours by going in with the thought that any recipe that calls for cooking sugar just never works for me.

The recipe isn't hard - at least, it shouldn't be. I used one from Grace Foods. The recipe states that you should  "Stir constantly until mixture thickens." I didn't know how thick was thick enough and I left it on a bit too long. There was then a mad dash to scrape it out the pan, spread it, colour some and spread that. Some parts crumbled and didn't set together. But it still tasted just like grater cake.

Not quite there but still tasty

I do want to try this again and play around with the sugar to coconut ratio. I also want to watch someone who knows what to do so I can know when to stop cooking it. I'll wait until I can watch someone before I throw more sugar and coconut at this.