Twix Muffins #MuffinMonday

Twix Muffins combine a sweet chocolate batter with crunchy Twix bars inside and on top for a batch of great snack muffins the whole family will love.

This past week has been full of fun days and one not so fun day. Last Friday I sat around in a room at the American Hospital in Paris, first waiting for my dear husband to be taken in for minor surgery, then waiting for him to return (which he did, in good health - yay!) and then waiting for them to release him. Those were nine plus hours I’ll never get back but it was all worth it in the end.

One good thing about sitting around and waiting is time to read.  I read Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar in its entirety again.  It’s been a very long time and it was just as good as ever.  You know when you are a student and you are made to read a book and sometimes you just hate it because you HAVE to read it?  I hardly ever suffered like that. Why?  Because I have an older sister.  That’s right.  Three years older.  So most of the time I read those books way before I had to, when she brought them home for her English classes, and so I could enjoy them without the pain of essay writing or critical analyses to suck out the joy.  And then, when it came time for me to really, really read them, I was one step ahead of the game.  

But enough of the not-so-fun day.  One of the FUN days this week involved shopping at a store named Casa with my friend, Mary, where we bought pretty new muffin liners and new muffin tins!  I didn’t realize how old and stained my own muffin tin was until I started taking regular photos for Muffin Monday.  But I couldn’t find a new one in Cairo.  So I tried to pretend I wasn’t ashamed of the old tin and just kept posting. Behold, the new muffin tin, just in time for Twix Muffins!

Twix Muffins 

Since I was baking in an unfamiliar kitchen, I kept the recipe simple this week and just followed instructions like a good girl. The only change I made from the original recipe was the addition of more Twix bars for topping.  Because, when it comes to Twix muffins, more = good.  

Ingredients
5 Twix bars (They come two in each individual packet.)
2 cups or 250g flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda or bicarbonate of soda
3 tablespoons cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup or 120g sugar
1 egg
1/2 cup or 110g butter, melted and cooled
1 cup or 240ml milk
2-3 Twix bars for topping
Powdered or confectioners' sugar, optional

Method
Preheat oven to 375°F or 190°C and grease muffin tin well or line with muffin cups.

Cut the first five Twix bars into small pieces.

Mix flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cocoa and Twix in a bowl.

Slice the extra Twix bars for topping.  Set aside. 

In another bowl, beat eggs, sugar, milk and butter until smooth.

Add the wet ingredients to the flour mixture and stir gently until just combined.

Divide your batter into the muffin cups and top with the extra sliced Twix bars.

A new muffin tin!  This one is actually Mary's but mine is identical.

Bake for about 20 - 25 minutes in your preheated oven.  Remove from the oven and allow to cool for a few minutes.

Remove from muffin tin and allow to cool completely on a rack before sprinkling with powdered sugar, if desired.  We decided not to cover the extra Twix pieces with sugar so we left the muffins naked.

Enjoy!

And here are the links to some of my past muffins:

• Banana Bacon Peanut Butter Chip Muffins 
• Cardamom Cinnamon Apricot Muffins  
• Double Nutella Swirl Muffins 
• Honey Date Pine Nut Muffins  
• Quick Bread Breakfast Muffins
• Salted Caramel Macchiato Muffins 
• S'mores Muffins

Zucchini Clafoutis

A savory main or side dish with zucchini or courgette baked in a lovely cheesy fluffy batter, zucchini clafoutis is a delight and so easy to make.

The English language probably has more words than any other language in the world, and yet, sometimes it is lacking. As I write this post I am sitting in the dining room of an old friend who lives just south of Paris. We met more than 20 years ago when I lived in the same little town. But “old friend” sounds unwarrantedly negative because Mary is only a couple of years older than I am, and frankly, I don’t know anyone younger in spirit and full of positivity – and she is in pretty good physical shape too.  

In French, on the other hand, an old friend - one you have known for a very long time - is an ancienne amie. An old friend - one that is advanced in age - is an amie ancienne. We need something like that in English, don’t you think? 

Anyhoo, here I am in Paris, enjoying a couple of days with my ancienne amie, Mary, and we have been cooking and gabbing and drinking wine. She is a wonderful, natural cook who uses fresh ingredients to make delicious meals. She and her family have made me extremely welcome and I would like to live here forever, except for the probably-imposing-after-a-few-days thing.

I happened to tell Mary about making zucchini clafoutis a couple of weeks ago and suddenly, we had added it to the menu for the evening, along with a sausage pilaf she had already planned. I sliced and diced the zucchini in the kitchen while she taught a private English class out on the deck in the beautiful sunshine. The weather has been GORGEOUS this week. 

Then she finished the pilaf and got it in the oven, while we enjoyed a glass of wine.  And some more chatting. Simple delicious food, lovingly prepared then eaten in the company of good friends. It doesn’t get better than this.

Ingredients

For the vegetables:

2-3 tablespoons olive oil


1/2 large onion

1 lb 12 oz or 800 grams small zucchini or courgettes

2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh thyme
 leaves

Salt and pepper for seasoning the zucchini

For the batter:

1/3 cup or 40 grams flour

1/2 cup or 120ml whole milk

3/4 cup or 180ml heavy cream


1/4 cup or 60ml water


3 eggs


½ teaspoon fine sea salt


3 1/8 oz or 90 grams grated Parmesan (Don’t worry too much about the exact measure.  More won’t hurt. :)

Method

Preheat the oven to 400°F or 200°C.   Grease a 13X9in or 33X23cm baking dish with olive oil and set aside.

Chop your onion and set aside.

Scrub the zucchini and cut the ends off.  Slice in 1/4-inch circles. If you have big zucchini, you may choose to peel them. 

Set a large skillet over medium-high heat.  Drizzle with olive oil and add the zucchini and cook till they brown a little.  Now add the chopped onion.

Season with salt and pepper.  Cook gently for a few minutes and then add the thyme.  

Cook until the vegetables are tender and the water coming from the zucchini has mostly evaporated.  Transfer this mixture to the serving dish and allow to cool.

 To make the batter, whisk together the flour, milk, cream, water, eggs, and the 1/2 teaspoon salt until they are silky smooth.

Pour the egg batter over the vegetables.  

Top with the cheese.

Bake the clafoutis until the eggs are set and top is golden brown, about 30 minutes.

If necessary, brown the top further with the oven broiler or grill before serving.  Can be served hot or at room temperature.

 Enjoy!

S'mores Muffins #MuffinMonday

Graham crackers, chocolate chips and mini marshmallows baked up in a sweet muffin. What else could I call them but S'mores Muffins!

I am so excited because as I write this post and schedule it to go live on Monday for Muffin Monday, I probably should be packing for our weekend on the Sinai Peninsula.  A beach holiday is the best holiday always.  And our girls are here so it will be the four of us at the beach, which makes it the perfect holiday.  But first:  I am making muffins.  And these are wonderful!

S'mores Muffins

The original recipe from Dwell on Joy called for graham crackers and chocolate chips so, of course, the first thing that sprang to my mind was s’mores.  Some of my best childhood memories include making s'mores around a Girl Scout campfire.  Unless you have roasted a marshmallow over an open fire and smashed it between graham crackers with a square of chocolate, you haven't lived!   Because of availability, I had to replace the graham crackers with digestive biscuits but I think that was a good thing! (Especially since I had special digestives with dark chocolate on one side.)  And naturally, s’mores had to include mini marshmallows.

Ingredients
 2 cups or 250g flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup or 70g sugar
1 cup or 115g of graham crackers or digestive biscuits with dark chocolate :)
1 cup milk
1/3 cup or 80ml canola or sunflower oil
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup or 90g chocolate chips
1 cup or 50g mini marshmallows

For the topping:
6 squares dark or milk chocolate candy bar about 1/3 oz or 10g each
24 mini marshmallows

Method Preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C and liberally grease your muffin tin with butter or non-stick spray.

Crush your graham crackers or digestive biscuits with a pestle or drink muddler in a big mixing bowl.  Don’t get them too fine.  You don’t want just powder but some crunchy bits as well.

Add your flour, baking powder, salt and sugar to the cracker/biscuit bowl.  Mix well and set aside.

In another smaller bowl, combine your wet ingredients - milk, oil, egg and vanilla.  Whisk well.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir until just moistened.  You can even leave a little flour showing since you are going to continue to mix as you fold in the chocolate chips and marshmallows.

Gently fold in your chocolate chips and the 1 cup or 50g of mini marshmallows. 

Divide your batter between the greased muffin cups.

Carefully score your six chocolate squares with a serrated knife and break them into two even halves.

Decorate each muffin by inserting a half square of chocolate bar in the middle with two mini marshmallows on either side.

Bake 20-25 minutes or until muffins are a golden brown.

Cool for a few minutes and then, run a dull knife around the muffin tin to remove the muffins.  (Sometimes the marshmallows stick a little, even when the tin is well greased.)

Cool on a rack and then serve.  These are great with a glass of cold milk!

Enjoy!

The muffins have cool holes in the middle where the marshmallows have melted into the batter while baking.