Moist chocolate muffins

Ingredients for 1 servings:

• 75 g butter
• 50 g dark chocolate
• 50 g dark chocolate, grated
• 50 g wheat flour type 405
• 120 g cane sugar
• 1 tbsp cocoa
• ½ tsp baking soda
• ½ tsp baking powder
• 1 vanilla pod(s), including the seeds, or 1 tsp vanilla paste or 1 packet of Bourbon vanilla sugar
• 1 pinch(s) sea salt
• 2 eggs
• 150 g zucchini, finely grated
• 100 g almonds, ground or chopped
• possibly sugar pearls, sugar writing, sugar eyes, chocolate sprinkles, chocolate glaze, nuts or similar.

Instructions

Working time approx. 15 minutes; Cooking/baking time approx. 25 minutes; Total time approx. 40 minutes

not just for Halloween, for a 12-cup muffin tray

Preheat the oven to 150°C (fan/convection oven). Gently melt the butter with the first 50g of chocolate, taking care not to overheat. This can also be done in the microwave on low power, stirring occasionally. Using the whisk attachment of a hand mixer, beat the eggs and sugar until frothy; this takes about 3-4 minutes. Combine the flour, cocoa, baking soda, and baking powder and sift it into the egg mixture. Stir in with a wooden spoon (preferably a wooden one with a hole in the middle) until the eggs and flour are just combined. Add the slightly cooled chocolate-butter mixture and fold it in. Add the grated chocolate, salt, zucchini, and almonds or walnuts and fold in. Using a tablespoon, spoon the batter into a 12-hole muffin tin lined with paper baking cups. The cups will be quite full, but the muffins will stay where they should be; they won’t rise particularly high. Bake the muffins on the middle rack for about 25 minutes. Then remove and let cool in the pan. Decorate as desired or simply enjoy as is. The secret to the moistness and fluffiness is the finely grated zucchini. It has almost no flavor of its own; you can’t see or taste it in the finished baked goods, but the effect is amazing. Grated carrots also work. Instead of walnuts or almonds, the muffins also taste great with chopped macadamia or pecans.