Chocolate-covered Caramel Muffins #MuffinMonday

This week’s muffin recipe called for an ingredient I had never heard of but one I am sure I would love, caramel milk chocolate drops.  I’m not much of a sweet eater but I do have a weakness for caramel, especially of the salty variety.  I was one of those children who would open a sampler box of chocolates and zero in on the little square ones because they were usually the one with caramel inside.

I am a little embarrassed to admit this, but I would sometimes poke the bottom with a fingernail to make sure it was really caramel and not some horrible fruit filling before I would take a bite.  And I am completely ashamed to admit that I would put the chocolate back in the box, if it wasn't.  I know, I know.  It was terrible thing to do but please tell me I wasn’t the only one!  With all due respect to Mrs. Gump, I wanted to know what I was gonna get. 

Anyway, back to our caramel milk chocolate drop problem.  I went off the shops in search of same but had no luck.  Instead, I bought some little Galaxy candy bars, which are chocolate-covered caramel.  Those would do, right?  The caramel was oozy, which is a good thing unless you need to cut them into bits, so my very smart husband suggested that I pop them in the refrigerator overnight to harden up.  And it worked beautifully!

The original measurements are metric so I tried my best to approximate for those who use cups.  (Scales are so much easier!)  When I say Scant, just don’t fill it up quite all the way.  Almost but not quite, okay?

Ingredients

Scant 2 1/2 cups or 300g flour

Scant 1/2 cup or 100g sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons baking powder           

2 eggs

2/3 cup or 150ml milk

1/2 cup or 110g butter, melted and cooled

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

5 1/2 oz or 155g chocolate -covered caramel candies (Chilled, if the caramel is soft.)

Method

Preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C and either grease a 12-cup muffin tin or line it with paper muffin cups. 

In a large bowl, stir together your flour, sugar, salt and baking powder.

In another smaller bowl, whisk together your eggs, milk, vanilla extract and melted butter.

Remove your candies from the refrigerator and cut them into smaller chunks.

Fold your wet ingredients into your dry ones.  Stop when there is still quite a bit of flour still unmixed.

Add in the chopped candy and stir again until the batter is just mixed. 

Divide the batter between your prepared muffin cups.

Bake in the preheated oven for about 20 minutes or until a toothpick stuck in the middle comes out clean.  Mine could have been a little more brown but we were headed out the door to drive to Abu Dhabi to sail again.  And picnic on the smallest island ever.  (I'll put a photo at the bottom of the post for anyone who is interested.  Muffins are good picnic food, by the way.) 

Allow to cool for a few minutes in the tin and then remove to a wire rack to cool completely.

Enjoy!

The tide was on its way out and our little island did grow as we set up the picnic.