Dark Chocolate Whole Wheat Muffins

This past weekend I jetted off to Boston.. or more accurately, Somerville, to visit my sis and bro-in-law. The weather felt downright tropical after the -20 we have been having here. Ahh to feel the sun warming your skin- marvelous!

As my sister had an appointment in the morning, I met her by the T station near her place, and had a few minutes to peruse a cafe/bookstore while I waited for her to get there. I have so many cookbooks and yet I found myself in the cookbook aisle of the store and had to restrain myself.  I was drawn to this cookbook called "Seriously Delish" by Jessica Merchant. The recipes looked  seriously delicious but also pretty healthy and have quality, healthy ingredients.  Once Claire got there, we decided to try and make these muffins later in the day.

It was pretty funny, we picked  up some ingredients at the store that  Claire thought we might need: yogurt,dark chocolate and whole wheat flour. It turns out, Claire had all of these at home already. Hmm..Something tells me, E is the one doing most of the cooking. [ note: this was later confirmed by all the delicious meals E cooked for us while I was there... delicious salads, barbecued sausages, pancakes, eggs with mushrooms..mmm he is a great chef and whips meals up like it aint no thing.. Claire is a lucky lady.]

We didn't pick up a muffin tin however, and Claire didn't have one. E quickly went on amazon and ordered a silicon muffin tin. Alas, amazon is quick, but not THAT quick. So we decided to make this in the form of a cake- or, as it would turn out "Chocolate mess".

Well, let me tell you, this  mess definitely brought us to tears from laughing so hard. Sometimes, there is nothing better than baking with your sister!

Get all the ingredients out 

Start mixing

laughing

and crying

The texture wasn't quite what we expected..

what the heck? 

oh well, i'm sure it will still taste good

I recommend making these with moderately dark chocolate or bittersweet. We used a really very dark chocolate and I didn't find it sweet enough. My bro-in law, likes things not too sweet so he loved it. Also, we used whole wheat flour, but it would have been better with a whole wheat pastry flour. We ended up serving it in a bowl, topped with blueberry preserves. It would also be good crumpled in Greek yogurt.

Ingredients:
- 2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
- 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa
- 1/3 cup granulated sugar
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup low-fat milk
- 2 large eggs, lightly beaten
- 3 tablespoons plain low-fat greek yogurt
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly * uh-ohh.. only 2 T? this is when we got a bit worried, as we knew this recipe would be very healthy
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 5 ounces high-quality dark chocolate, chopped

Directions: 
- Preheat oven to 350
- Line muffin tin or use non -stick
- whisk together flour, cocoa, sugar, baking powder and salt in a large bowl.
- In a smaller bowl, whisk milk, eggs, yogurt, butter and vanilla extract.
- Add wet ingredients to dry ones and mix until just combined. Gently stir in chopped chocolate.
- Scoop batter evenly into muffin tin. Baked for 15-17 min. Remove from oven. let cool, enjoy!