Cherry chocolate muffins

Name: Cherry chocolate muffins
Prep time: 25 min
Cook time: 25 min
Ingredients: 250 g self raising flour; 1 tsp baking powder; 50 g butter (softened); 75 g caster sugar; 2 eggs; 250 ml milk; 150 g chocolate chips; 150 g cherries

These cherry chocolate muffins are a fantastic flavour combination and a great bake for kids to try.

I love making muffins with my kids and these cherry chocolate muffins are no exception. Muffins are such an easy bake for children as you can just mix everything together in one bowl. There’s no rolling or cutting out like you do with biscuits, and there’s no having to make icing like you do with cupcakes.

These muffins are bursting with cherries and chocolate – the perfect flavour combination. We made these muffins because we’d bought a batch of cherries from the supermarket which weren’t very nice (thank you online food shop 🙁 ). It seemed a shame to waste them so we used them in our baking instead. Delicious, ripe, juicey cherries would only make these muffins even tastier!

How can kids help to make cherry chocolate muffins?

This is a great recipe for letting kids get their hands a bit messy. As well as measuring out the ingredients, kids can get involved in rubbing the flour and butter together – the perfect job for little kids.

Preparing the cherries is another great job for kids, especially if you have a cherry stoner. Slightly older children will also be able to help chop the cherries into small pieces, ready to put in the muffins.

Finally, even very young children might enjoy filling the muffin cases. It can get a little messy, but if you use an ice-cream scoop it can make it a bit easier.

Similar recipes

If you liked these cherry muffins, you’ll love our Black Forest cupcakes or these favourite muffin recipes:

Cheese muffins
Blueberry and apple muffins
Lemon curd muffins
Blueberry muffins
Apple cinnamon muffins

Useful equipment

You might need the following baking tools/gadgets to make these cherry chocolate muffins

Digital scales
Mixing bowl
Wooden spoons
Measuring cup
Measuring jug
Cherry pitter
Muffin tin
Cupcake cases
Wire rack

Difficulty: Easy

Time: 25 minutes plus 25 minutes baking

Serves: 12 muffins

Ingredients

250g self raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
50g butter, softened
75g caster sugar
2 eggs
250ml milk
150g chocolate chips
150g cherries

How to make cherry chocolate muffins

Pre-heat your oven to 180C / 170C fan / 350F and line a muffin tin with cases.

Mix the dry ingredients

Ge your kids to measure the flour and butter and add them to a large mixing bowl. While they are doing that, add the baking powder of get one of your kids to do it for you.

Chop the butter into small pieces then get your kids to rub the butter into the flour using their finger tips until you have a mixture that resembles bread crumbs.

Add the sugar

Measure the sugar and add it to your mixing bowl. Stir it in.

Add the cherries and chocolate chips

Stone your cherries – if you have a cherry stoner this is a great job to let your kids do. If you don’t, you’ll need to cut your cherries in half before removing the stone. We also cut the cherries into quarters (older kids can help with this) but you may need to cut them more if you have particularly large cherries, just to make sure the pieces aren’t too large in each muffin.

Add the cherries, along with the chocolate chips to your mixing bowl. Give it a stir so the cherries are coated in flour. This should stop them sinking to the bottom of your muffins.

Add the wet ingredients

Measure the milk into a measuring jug. The best way to do this if you have digital scales is to use the ml setting.

Add the eggs to you jug. If you’re confident your kids won’t get shell in, break them straight into your jug. If, like us, you don’t want to risk getting shell in, let your kids break the eggs into a small bowl first before adding them to your milk jug.

Add the milk and eggs to your mixing bowl and get your kids to mix everything together. Don’t over mix it – it’s ok if its a little lumpy, just make sure to scrape the bottom of the bowl to get all the flour.

Bake the cherry chocolate muffins

Spoon the muffin batter into the muffin cases. This is a great job for kids to do and you can make it even easier if you have an ice-cream scoop as it spoons the perfect amount in, with a lot less mess.

Bake the cherry chocolate muffins in the oven for 20-25 minutes. They’re ready when they’ve risen, turned golden and if you insert a skewer or sharp knife into the middle it should come out clean.

Remove the muffins from the oven and leave to cool for a few minutes in the tin before removing them and leaving them to cool completely on a wire rack.