Chocolate courgette muffins recipe

Preparation 15 minutes. Cooking 35 minutes

All sorts of good things can be tucked into a batch of muffins, in this case, dark chocolate and cherries for flavour and courgettes for a light, moist texture. Improvise muffin cases with 15cm x 15cm squares of baking parchment.

Makes 12 muffins 170g good dark chocolate, about 70% cocoa solids 200g plain white flour 1 tsp baking powder ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda 110g caster sugar finely grated zest of 1 orange 100g dried cherries, roughly chopped 225g courgettes, finely grated 2 medium eggs 175ml mild olive oil or sunflower oil

1 Heat the oven to 180°C (160°C fan oven) gas mark 4 and line the cups of a 12-hole muffin tray with paper cases or squares of non-stick baking parchment.

2 Melt the chocolate in a bowl set over a pan of hot water, stirring until smooth with a spatula that can later be used to scrape every last drop of chocolate into the muffin mixture. Keep warm.

3 Sift the flour, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda into a large bowl. Mix in the caster sugar, orange zest and dried cherries, followed by the grated courgettes.

4 In a bowl or blender, whisk together the eggs and oil. Stir this mixture into the dry ingredients, followed by the warm, melted chocolate.

5 Divide the mixture between the prepared muffin cases and bake for about 35 minutes or until they are well risen and a skewer inserted gently into the centre of a muffin comes out clean.

6 Allow to cool on a wire rack.

Recipe by Shona Crawford Poole http://www.countryliving.co.uk/index.php/recipe/Chocolate_courgette_muffins