Chocolate Chip Muffins

Yipppee, finally I've managed to make up a recipe for Chocolate Chip Muffins that are light and fluffy.  Any recipe that I've tried before I found to be either too dense and heavy, too sweet or too moist.   By mixing up lots of different recipes and tweeking here and there I came up with this one.  Which proved to be so popular with the family that I had to be quick at getting my photo before they disappeared.

Ingredients:
350g Plain Flour
40g Good Quality Cocoa Powder
175g Caster Sugar
1tbsp baking powder
Pinch of salt
300ml Buttermilk
2 Eggs, Beaten
85g Butter, Melted
1tsp Vanilla Extract
100g Milk Chocolate, Roughly Chopped (You can use dark chocolate here but I use milk because my kids prefer it)


Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 190°C and line a 12 hole muffin tin with cases.  I use cases because I find them much cleaner in the tin and when the kids are eating them.
2. In a large bowl combine all the dry ingredients, the flour, baking powder, salt caster sugar and then sieve in the cocoa powder.  
3. In a jug measure out 300ml of buttermilk and add in the eggs , vanilla and melted butter. Whisk together with a fork until well combined.  One thing that I learned the hard way was to take the buttermilk out of the fridge for about 15mins before baking because even if the melted butter has cooled, if it hit cold buttermilk it solidifies again. 
4. Make a well in the centre of the flour mixture and pour in the the liquid.  The key here is not to overmix. Gently mix until just combined.
5. Add in the chopped chocolate and give it only a light stir.
6. With a ice-cream scoop divide the mixture between the muffin cases
7. Bake for 25mins until risen.
8. Take out of the oven and leave to cool for 5mins before taking out of the tray and onto a wire rack.