Rocky Road Muffins – Cheering Up the Bank ‘Holiday’

In case it somehow passed you by (I can only assume you’ve been in the wilderness without a diary [not sure why you would take a diary to the wilderness, but that's irrelevant] or in a coma) last weekend was Easter. I, not being of a religious persuasion, marked the occasion by making Chocolate Easter Nests (because I’m really grown up like that) and laughed at fun marketing ploys. Possibly more important to most people than my C.E.N. recipe was the fact that the Easter Weekend gives us two bank holidays. Yay for a long weekend! Except mine wasn’t.

Our office is quite flexible for bank holidays and stays open, meaning that if you wish to be off you can, but if you would like the extra holidays at a time when you’re not just going stuff your face with chocolate (let’s be honest you can – and I did – do that in the office) you can work through. This sounded a great idea to me (it’ll give me the option of a day off when I move house, if I so wish) and so I opted to work. It was a great theory, but sitting in an office with fewer than half of the people that are normally there wasn’t quite as good an idea as I thought it would be. On Good Friday I had ‘that Friday feeling’ with a great big dollop of ‘why am I working on a Bank holiday’ feeling on top. Not fun. There was an obvious remedy for Easter Monday – make cake and take it in so we could eat even more chocolate and enjoy being at work when everyone else was away having fun.

I’ve been meaning to make Rocky Road Muffins for a while, so with all the other chocolate about it seemed like the ideal opportunity… They come from my favourite muffin recipe book (OK, I only have one) Muffin Magic, which I was bought on a whim a couple of years back and have been chuckling about ever since*. They were a great success – if a little sticky – and drew many a jealous look when I carried them in a transparent tupperware box on the bus. I think they also went down quite well with those in the office, as I have been told that future baking will be gratefully accepted. Pity only 11 actually made it as far as the tupperware…

What you need:
300g Self raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
3 tbsp Cocoa powder
95g milk chocolate, chopped (or cheat and use chocolate drops/buttons)
75g mini marshmallows
150g soft brown sugar
200ml milk
2 eggs, beaten
75g butter, melted
You can also add in chopped nuts if you so desire – use 50g and take 25g off both the chocolate and the marshmallows quantities above.

How to do it:
It makes about 12 large muffins, and needs the oven to be at 200′C/400′F/G.M. 6

1. Sift the flour, baking powder and cocoa into a large bowl, and combine well.
2. Pour in about two-thirds of both the marshmallows and chocolate chips (and the nuts, if using) and mix.
3. Combine the sugar, milk, eggs and butter in a separate bowl/jug until they are well mixed; then our this mixture into the dry ingredients slowly, whilst stirring.
4. Once the mixtures are fully stirred together spoon large dollops into your prepared muffin pan.
5. Press in the remaining marshmallows and chocolate chips into the tops of each muffin, then bake in the oven for about 20 minutes, or until they’ve risen and are firm to the touch.

And then you can enjoy these fluffy, chocolatey muffins. They are probably best when they’re still slightly warm, but are perfectly good cold. They certainly cheered me up and got me through to home time.

Bring on the national holiday for the queen’s diamond jubilee!

Cr

*If you’re more mature than my friends and I are and don’t get why it funny, I suggest you use urbandictionary.com and discover an alternate definition for ‘muffin’, and then combine generously with the word ‘magic’ until you get the, ahem, picture…