Chocolate Cream Cheese Muffins

Okay first of all, I want some Hershey’s Special Dark Cocoa Powder.  Why does it seem not to exist in Los Angeles?  It makes brownie batter look like tar and it is WONDERFUL.  Sadly, I didn’t have any when I made these muffins, but they came out deliciously nevertheless.  They just could’ve been better, is all.

So here are your ingredients.  The recipe is adapted from Inn Cuisine.

2 c. flour

1 c. granulated sugar

6 tbsp. unsweetened cocoa powder (I’m telling you, go for the Special Dark!)

4 tsp. baking powder

1½ tsp. espresso powder

1 tsp. salt

1 c. chocolate chips

2 large eggs

1½ c. milk

2/3 c. canola oil

filling:

12 oz. cream cheese

3 tbsp. powdered sugar

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Combine the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, espresso powder, salt and chocolate chips in a medium bowl and set aside.  Beat together the cream cheese and powdered sugar until fluffy, and set aside.  In a small bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, and oil.

Make a well in the dry ingredients and pour in the wet ingredients.  Fold in until incorporated.  Spray or line muffin trays (I made 20 muffins, but depending on how big you make them you could get 18-24).  Fill muffin cups with about a tablespoon of batter.  Add a dollop of the cream cheese mixture.  Fill the cups the remainder of the way with batter, covering the cream cheese, almost to the tops of the cups.

Bake for 20 minutes.

Now I discovered that the cream cheese starts to cave in after a while, which looks like this:

I'm not sure there's anything we can do about this, but I assure you that they are no less delicious for it.

Also, if you made a filling of peanut butter and white chocolate, this would make a delicious peanut-butter-cup muffin!