Choc & Marshmallow Muffin recipe by Eric Lanlard

Chocolate Week 2010 ends on Sunday 17th October this week (boooo…), but National Baking Week 2010 starts on Monday 18th October (hooray!). To celebrate, ACHICA has some delightful promotions starting next week. These include useful baking tools such as spatulas, cooling stands and measuring spoons from Kitchencraft, as well as silicone rolling pins from Sil-pin. There will be super-sharp professional knives from Sabatier, cake moulds from Lekue and some rather nifty kitchen scales from Salter too.

To get you in the mood to bake up some treats, here’s some delicious recipes from Master Patissier Eric Lanlard, from his new book Home Bake. These recipes are definitely one for a lazy Sunday afternoon bake. Anyone for Double Chocolate Marshmallow muffins? Or would you prefer Chai Tea cupcakes? They might just inspire you to do some winter baking and get ready for Christmas (there’s a Festive Recipes section in Eric’s Home Bake book too).

Double chocolate marshmallow muffins

“These are a chocoholic’s dream! As much as I hate to admit it, I’ve been seen placing these muffins when cold in a microwave for a moment or so, and serving them warm with some ice-cream… Divine!” says Eric Lanlard.

Makes 12 muffins

Preparation time: 10 minutes, + cooling

Cooking time: 20 minutes

For the muffins

2 large eggs

175ml (6fl oz) vegetable oil

300ml (10fl oz) milk

500g (18oz) self-raising flour

a good pinch of salt

2 tsp baking powder

4 tbsp pure cocoa powder

250g (9oz) caster sugar

4 tbsp dark chocolate nuggets/chips

150g (5oz) mini marshmallows

For the decoration

1 jar Marshmallow Fluff topping (buy in

larger supermarkets and specialist

food halls)

sweetened cocoa powder

Recipe

1 Preheat the oven to 200ºC (fan 180ºC)/400ºF/gas mark 6. Line a

12-cup muffin tin with muffin papers.

2 Put the eggs and vegetable oil into a large jug and mix them

together, then mix in the milk.

3 Next sift the flour, salt, baking powder, cocoa powder and sugar

together into a large bowl. Now add the jug of egg mixture to the

bowl of dry mixture and mix until it all comes together. Fold in the

chocolate nuggets.

4 Scoop enough batter into the muffin papers to half fill them. Divide

about three-quarters of the mini marshmallows between the centres

of the muffins, and then top with the remaining batter.

5 Bake in the preheated oven for 20 minutes until the thin blade of

a knife inserted comes out clean. Leave to cool on a wire rack.

6 With a small fork create ‘spikes’ with the marshmallow topping on

top of each muffin. Add the remaining mini marshmallows and dust

with sweetened cocoa powder.

Top tip

Don’t add the Marshmallow Fluff  topping until you are ready to serve, as it will start to melt.

Chai Tea Cupcakes

“These original cupcakes have a great flavour. I tried them first in New York with a vanilla

base, but I much prefer this chocolate one. Chai is a mixture of tea leaves and spices

(cinnamon, fennel, cloves etc) originally from India. Chai tea mix is available in all good

supermarkets, in the tea and coffee section,’ says Eric Lanlard.

Makes 12 cupcakes

Preparation time: 15 minutes, + cooling

Cooking time: 15 minutes

For the cupcakes

125g (4½oz) plain flour

25g (1oz)unsweetened cocoa powder

25g (1oz) instant chai tea mix

1 tsp baking powder

¼ tsp fine salt

100g (3½oz) unsalted butter

150g (5oz) caster sugar

2 large eggs

½ tsp vanilla extract

80ml (3¾fl oz) milk

For the orange and chai butter-cream

frosting

200g (7oz) unsalted butter, softened

50g (2oz) instant chai tea mix

60g (2¼oz) icing sugar

finely grated zest of 1 orange

1 Preheat the oven to 180ºC (fan 160ºC)/350ºF/gas mark 4. Line a

12-cup muffin tin with cupcake papers.

2 Combine the flour, cocoa, chai mix, baking powder and salt in a

bowl, and mix together.

3 In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugar together, using

an electric hand whisk on medium speed. This will take about 3

minutes. Add the eggs one at a time and beat in well. Then stir in

the vanilla extract.

4 With the whisk on low speed, alternately add the flour and milk

to the creamed butter mixture and beat until well combined

and smooth.

5 Fill the cupcake cups with this batter up to three-quarters full. Bake

in the preheated oven for about 15 minutes or until risen, and an

inserted skewer comes out clean. Let the cupcakes cool completely

on a wire rack before frosting.

6 For the frosting, combine all the ingredients in a bowl and mix with

a wooden spoon until smooth. Refrigerate until the cakes have

cooled.

7 Spread the frosting on top of the cupcakes and, if you like, sprinkle

with extra cocoa powder and icing sugar on top as a garnish.

Check out next week’s baking promotions with Sabatier, KitchenCraft, Sil-pin and Lekue at ACHICA

The ACHICA Living blog brings you style inspiration from ACHICA.com.

Already a member of ACHICA.com? Click here for current shopping promotions.

Not yet a member? It’s free to join ACHICA.com to get your daily dose of shopping promotions.

For beautiful furniture, accessories and daily design ideas for your home and lifestyle, shop at ACHICA.

Tweet

You might also like

• Celebrate the closing ceremony with this Team GB cake recipe
• ACHICA About Town at Le Chandelier tea rooms
• How to make a Christmas stocking