Discard chocolate muffins
Deep, dark and properly moist, thanks to the yoghurt. From bowl to cooling rack in under an hour, and a good way to get through a lot of discard at once.
Uses discardCollected
Wet ingredients
| Ingredient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Sourdough discard, unfed | 240 g |
| Plain yoghurt | 120 g |
| Eggs, large | 2 |
| Milk | 120 g |
| Butter, melted | 115 g |
| Vanilla extract | 1 tsp |
Only have half that much discard? Use 120 g and keep everything else the same. The muffins are a little less tangy and every bit as good.
Dry ingredients
| Ingredient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Plain flour | 220 g |
| Cocoa powder, unsweetened | 50 g |
| Sugar | 200 g |
| Baking powder | 2 tsp |
| Bicarbonate of soda | ½ tsp |
| Fine salt | ½ tsp |
Optional
- 170 g chocolate chips, plus a few for the tops
- 50 g chopped walnuts
Method
- Heat the oven to 190 °C / 375 °F and line a 12-hole muffin tin.
- Whisk all the wet ingredients together in a large bowl until smooth.
- Whisk the dry ingredients together in a second bowl.
- Tip the dry into the wet and stir just until combined. A few streaks of flour are fine. Overmixing is the one thing that will ruin these.
- Fold in the chocolate chips, if using.
- Fill each hole about three quarters full and press a few more chips on top.
- Bake 18 to 22 minutes, until a skewer comes out with a few moist crumbs rather than clean.
- Cool in the tin for 10 minutes, then onto a rack.
Tall bakery-style tops
Start hot and then drop the heat. Bake at 220 °C for 5 minutes, then - without opening the door - reduce to 190 °C and bake another 13 to 15 minutes. The initial blast sets a dome before the crumb has finished rising.
Overnight version, for more sourdough flavour
Tonight: mix only the discard, yoghurt, flour and milk. Cover and leave on the counter for 8 to 12 hours.
Tomorrow: add everything else, mix, scoop and bake as above. The crumb comes out more tender and the flavour noticeably deeper.
Make them properly chocolatey
Add 1 tbsp of espresso powder along with the cocoa. It does not taste of coffee - it just makes the chocolate taste more like chocolate.
Keeping them
Covered at room temperature for 2 to 3 days, in the fridge for a week, or frozen for up to three months.
Collected, not yet baked by me
This one came from a baker I trust and is rewritten here in metric and plain language, but it is still on my own to-bake list. The method is sound; the exact timings are the bit I have not personally checked. Watch the dough rather than the clock, and tell me how it went so I can correct it.