Raspberry and Double Chocolate Muffins and Loaf Cake

Raspberry and Chocolate Muffin

You know it’s been a long time since you’ve made cake when work colleagues start asking for them! Around the same time last year (just after Christmas when everyone was trying to shift a few pounds!) it was the opposite, we were all sick of the sight of cakes and biscuits in the office…

So I dusted off the muffin tin and rummaged for the muffin cases to try out this Raspberry and Chocolate Muffin recipe. This recipe current has 239 positive reviews so I chose to go with this one without even bothering to look at others, why would I ignore such a highly recommended recipe?!

Raspberry and Chocolate Muffin

First thing to note is that the recipe uses ‘cups’ rather than weighing out each ingredient making it very simple to throw together. I usually have some frozen berries in the freezer for emergency baking or fruity sauce making (yes there are instances of such urgent issues in my life). I also have quite a few blocks of chocolate left over from Christmas baking. I’m not a huge fan of eating chocolate on its own so they have gone untouched in case of other dessert making adventures.

The recipe itself calls for white chocolate but I didn’t have enough so I ended up using both white and milk chocolates, hence the ‘double chocolate’ element of the muffin. As with most cake recipes, I reduced the amount of sugar from 1 cup to 2/3 cup. I figured that with all that chocolate in it, it would be sweet enough. On taste testing the muffins (I had to have 2 just to be sure) I would even go for half a cup of sugar depending on how sweet your chocolate is!

Raspberry and Chocolate Muffins and Loaf

I was quite surprised that there is only 50g of butter and 1 egg in this recipe. Relatively low in fat compared to other muffin recipes, an excuse to eat double the amount maybe?

Due to the expanding number of people working in my office I made two batches. The first batch went into a loaf tin and the second batch in 12 muffin cases. I have to say that sticking the the muffins is much quicker. They took 20 minutes but the loaf tin took a good 45 minutes to bake. However, having a cake to cut up is always more enjoyable when with a group of friends with a round of tea and coffee… There are pros and cons to both, but pretty much any cake is always a good thing!

So you can imagine that after baking such lovely cake and muffins for my work mates, I was looking forward to seeing their reactions when they took the initial bite and tasted the tart raspberries with the sweet chocolatey nuggets of goodness. Well something terrible happened, and not for the first time! I FORGOT to take the cakes with me in the morning! Can you imagine the horror when I realised half way into my one hour commute to work? I just dreaded having to tell them all that the cakes I had made especially for them were abandoned on my coffee table 30 miles away… The worst of it was that I wasn’t even due in the office the next day so couldn’t even give them slightly stale cake. Oh well, more for me! 🙂

Their wish has been left unfulfilled…

The Ultimate Chocolate Cake!

Ultimate Chocolate Cake with Fresh Cream and Raspberries

Chocolate cake is usually a reliable crowd pleaser, although I do know a few people who have allergies to chocolate and caffeine so this cake is definitely not for them! I can’t say that chocolate cake is my all time favourite, I often find it far too sweet and a bit too rich! But given the choice of eating a piece of chocolate cake or no cake at all, I’d take what is on offer! 🙂

I made this cake for my brother-in-law’s birthday this weekend. It was actually a second attempt as the first attempt went terribly wrong, but I’m not exactly sure why! It was very flat and However, my brother-in-law and nephew being big chocolate cake fans managed to polish off the ‘trial cake’ within a day anyway…

I’ve mentioned in previous posts that I grew up eating ‘Black Forest Gateaux’ for birthday cakes. This cake ended up being very similar in flavour. I’m not sure if this decision was subconsciously or whether it was a happy ‘coincidence’ but it was well received by all anyway!

The recipe is for The Ultimate Chocolate Cake and judging by the current 864 ratings on the BBC Good Food website, its a popular and reliable recipe to go with. It’s also a very basic easy to follow recipe so a good one to fall back on when you are short on time and need something fairly quick. It’s very similar to a brownie recipe and results in a dense cake with a slight crunch on the outside.

Ultimate Chocolate Cake with Fresh Cream, Raspberries and Cherry Compote in the middle

This is the second time I’ve made this cake, the first time was for a colleague’s birthday in the office a few months ago. It went down very well then too but I found it far too rich and sweet so this time I attempted to lighten it up by adding fresh cream and the tartness of fresh berries to try and cur through the rich dark chocolate. This was achieved to a certain extent, but I don’t think I went far enough. Feedback from the family was that more cream was needed, so I will definitely remember this for next time! The fruit was a welcomed addition and again I would add a lot more next time…

Ultimate Chocolate Cake with Fresh Cream and Raspberries

I have a confession to make with this cake… The nice little pile of raspberries that were delicately placed in the middle of the cake didn’t stay there for long. When packing into the cake carrier, I found the cake was too high and the lid did not fit, so I ate all the raspberries off the top to make it fit! It only occurred to me later on that I could have put the extra raspberries into a container to add them later on, but by then it was already too late! 🙂

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