NIGELLA LAWSON'S CHOCOLATE CHERRY MUFFINS

NIGELLA LAWSON'S CHOCOLATE CHERRY MUFFINS

When Doreen sent me the recipe for banana cupcakes I realised that it's been a long time since I made cupcakes or muffins. For some reason I've preferred to bake cakes in recent years.......perhaps it's because cakes are more substantial, I've never been someone who likes delicate food! There's something dainty about a cupcake, unlike a slice of cake.
However, I used to make these wonderful chocolate cherry muffins from my favourite Nigella Lawson cookbook - "How to Be a Domestic Goddess". That book taught me how to bake and substained me through the pressure of baking professionally.
Nigella iced these muffins, but as I never did I've omitted the icing from the recipe.

Ingredients

125g soft unsalted butter
100g dark chocolate, broken into pieces
300g morello cherry jam
150g caster sugar
pinch of salt
2 large eggs, beaten
150g self-raising flour
12-bun muffin tin and papers

Preheat the oven to 180C/gas mark 4.

Put the butter in a heavy-bottomed pan on the heat to melt.
When nearly completely melted, stir in the chocolate. Leave for a moment to begin softening, then take the pan off the heat and stir with a wooden spoon until the butter and chocolate are smooth and melted.
Add the cherry jam, sugar, salt and eggs. Stir with a wooden spoon and when all is pretty well amalgamated stir in the flour.
Scrape and pour into the muffin papers in their tin and bake for 25 minutes.
Cool in the pan on a rack for 10 minutes before turning out.