Chocolate Sour Cherry Muffins

CHOCOLATE! CHOCOLATE! CHOCOLATE!

I have to admit I loooove choclate in every form. As a cake, as a bar, as ice cream, as a mousse and and and.But as soon as temperatures get a little warmer around here I am also craving something fruity and fresh. So I thought why not combine those two into a wonderful muffin with full-bodied cocoa and fresh sour cherries? The perfect vegan, glutenfree muffin for every warm spring afternoon! The concept of sour and sweet goes all the way up to the glaze where I combined dark chocolate glaze with lemon-sugar glaze. I find it not only beautiful but also incredibly delicious!

I like to tailor every glutenfree flour mixture to the flavours that are already occuring in my recipe composition. In this case there is the tart flavor of cocoa which fits nutty flavors very well. So I decided to use teff flour in my flour mix. Teff is a dark kind of millet that mostly grows in Africa. It is very high in nutrients and fiber and has a slightly nutty taste. In combination with the cocoa the two flavors enforce each other and you could think there are actual nuts in your cake. The other two major components in my mix today are rice and millet flour. If you do not want to buy teff flour you can also replace the 40g with more rice and/or millet flour. If you decide for rice be sure to take brown rice because otherwise your starch content will be too high. To replace eggs I used flaxseed for my muffins. They give moisture and texture to your cake and also help to bind everything together. Since they are also very healthy I would say there are only upsides to this wonderful alternative to eggs!

One other thing: I find it very important to use high quality ingredients! The more you experiment the more you will see for yourself that there are immense differences in taste when you use good quality ingredients. So don’t save here but spend those few euros/dollars more on ecological products, good chocolate with high cocoa content and ecological cocoa with high oil content. You are baking for you or your friends after all, so do yourself a favor, you are worth it!

Ingredients

DRY INGREDIENTS

60g potatoe starch

40g millet flour

40g teff flour

40g rice flour

160g sugar

30g cocoa

1/4 teaspoon xanthan

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/8 teaspoon baking soda

1/16 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 teaspoon salt

***** for 6 muffins *****

WET INGREDIENTS

20g ground flaxseed + 100g water

60g water

60g sour cherry juice

80g oil

2 teaspoons lemon juice

30 sour cherries (from a glass or fresh)

GLAZE

40g chocolate (min.55% cocoa)

20g margarine

2 tablespoons lemon juice

10 tablespoons confectioner’s sugar

Preparation

Pre-Heat your oven to 170°C.

Mix your 20g of ground flaxseed with 100g warm water in a small bowl and stir it shortly. In another bowl mix together your dry ingredients to make your flour mix.

Take a fork and stir up the flaxegg shortly but firmly, then add it to your flour mix.

Now combine the 60g water, 60g cherry juice, 80g oil and the lemon juice in a bowl and mix it shortly before adding it too your mixture. Then use your mixer and stir everything until a chocolaty dough has formed.

Prepare your muffinpan. Distribute 2/3 of your dough evenly between six forms. If you use an iceream scoop its easier. Then put 4 cherries into each muffin and scatter them a bit. Now divide the rest of your dough evenly between all muffins and top every one with another cherry.

Bake your muffins at 170°C for about 25 minutes without opening the oven inbetween. In the meantime you can prepare your glazes.

For the chocolate glaze cut up 40g of high quality chocolate and melt 20g of margarine in a saucepan. When the margarine is liquid take the pan away from the heat and stir in the chocolate chunks until everything has dissolved. For your lemon glaze you simply stir together the lemon juice and confectioner’s sugar.

Take your muffins out of the oven after 25 minutes and let them cool down for about 20 minutes. To glaze them distribute about 1 tablespoon of chocolate glaze on every muffins and with a small spoon make a pattern you like with your lemon glaze on top of the chocolate.