Recipe #33: Cocoa Spice Muffins

Cocoa Spice Muffins

These muffins were very good. I worried that the spices would be too much when I first mixed the batter, but they were not overpowering once the muffins were made. There is also molasses in the mix, which comes through ever-so-slightly in the muffins. They taste somewhat like chocolate gingerbread, which is not a bad thing. 😋

I got the recipe from the Hershey's website: Chocolate Spiced Muffins. Their recipe used cocoa as did the 201 Muffins recipe, but the Hershey's recipe called for chocolate chips, whereas the 201 Muffins recipe called for walnuts and no chocolate chips. So I replaced the chips with the walnuts. I think the change made the muffins just as good, though not as chocolaty. And walnuts always go well with chocolate, as we all know!

My tasters all enjoyed them, so I will keep this recipe. Obviously, cooks can count on Hershey's!

Recipe #32: Cocoa-Raisin-Walnut Muffins

Cocoa-Raisin-Walnut Muffins

For these muffins I used a recipe from Fisher Nuts: Chocolate Walnut Muffins. But since the 201 Muffins recipe called for raisins, and the Fisher Nuts recipe called for chocolate chips (in addition to walnuts), I simply substituted raisins for chocolate chips. The combination made for a very good muffin--delicious, in fact, though really more like a cupcake than a muffin.

The recipe was easy to make and the results were very good. The yield was a bit larger than the recipe indicated, though--16 instead of 12 muffins.

My tasters also enjoyed them. I must say that it's certainly nice to have recipes I can trust. When you have nice ingredients like cocoa, walnuts and raisins, you expect the results to be very good, not unpredictable and frequently bad, as they were with the book's recipes.

So, on to the next muffin idea: Cocoa Spice Muffins.

Recipe #31: Citrus Muffins

Citrus Muffins

For this batch of muffins, I used a recipe from BettyCrocker.com. It called for orange and lemon peel as the main flavoring (I added 2 tsp. triple sec), and a larger than usual amount of sugar, making the muffins somewhat plain but sweet. The original recipe (in 201 Muffins) used less sugar and more citrus peel, but since it seemed a bit bizarre otherwise, I couldn't trust it.

The muffins the Betty Crocker recipe produced did not have a strong orange flavor, though, so I probably won't use that recipe again. The recipe also called for a sugar-orange peel topping which was pretty, but didn't really add much flavor. It did add texture to the muffins, though, which would have been a little bland otherwise.

The only other objection I had to the recipe was that the orange-lemon peel in the topping got toasted and turned black, making the appearance less appealing. In the photo on the website, however, there was no trace of dark brown specks, and that makes me wonder if they altered the photo to take away the specks.

But despite these flaws, I thought they were very good tasting and my tasters agreed.

I rate these muffins 4.5 out of 5, mostly for the lack of citrus flavor.

Next: Cocoa-Walnut-Raisin Muffins