Malteser Muffins!

Malteser muffins 

These turned out FANTASTIC! And what a great product placement picture for Maltesers hey?
I had held on to this Delicious Magazine with a series on muffins for a while now, ear marking the malteser muffin recipe and their 'ultimate chocoholics' muffin recipe for a serious emergency muffin need in the near future.

The opportunity arose to make it when last week i was given a whole gift box of Maltesers at work (leftover from a delivery that had come in showcasing the 'christmas' selection, and in case i haven't mentioned it, i work for Mars, the company that gave birth to Mars, M&M's, Maltesers, Bounty, Snickers, Dove, Galaxy.... etc etc - and yes, it is tempting to be surrounded by chocolate!)

I had to deliver another batch of muffins for this weekend, and decided to 'take the risk' with this recipe, having no clue whether it would turn out well or not. I might have mentioned in earlier postings before that i had always sought after those perfect domed tops that come billowing out of their muffin cups. This recipe makes those larged domed tops. It uses 1 tablespoon of baking powder (and i use double acting baking powder which probably adds to the rise). On top of that, the tops were crispy - a much desired and loved part of for muffin lovers.

I think having to half fill 3 empty muffin cups with water contributed to the 'crispy tops'. I don't ever get crispy domed tops, and i think this might have been the trick. Because the recipe surprisingly only filled 3 cups of my jumbo sized muffin tin, i filled the remaining 3 with water (i had read somewhere before that one needs to balance the filled muffin tin when in the oven and to avoid burning the empty cups in the tin? - I'm not sure, but i think that was it)

After 20 mins, they came out huge and glorious with large LARGE domed tops. I have to confess that what you see in the picture are actually my second batch of this recipe. The first batch as i said, only made 3 large muffins. Following my policy not to deliver something i've never tried before, i of course was 'FORCED' to try one of the 3 and damn, was it good! Very sweet i must say, so make it if you're craving a dessert muffin. i tried a measly quarter, then wrapped up the remainder in foil and passed it to a girlfriend who had come to pick me up for a party that night (i had made these at 9:30pm on Sat night)

My Muffin Proposal
Now, I'm very proud of what then happened. She brought it to the party, and offered a portion to a guy friend of hers (that i had just been introduced to). He tried it, then said 'I would marry her for muffins like these' to which she said, 'well too bad, she's attached'. and we had a laugh about what a good line this would make in my blog. So there you go. The high point in my muffin career - a proposal from a near stranger.
Even if it was just hypothetical, it feels good to be able to tell the story.

So here goes the recipe!

Malteser Muffins

1 1/2 cups (225g) cups plain flour
1 cup crushed Maltesers, plus
24 whole Maltesers to decorate
1/2 cup (110g) caster sugar
1 tbs baking powder
1 egg
3/4 sour cream
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup melted unsalted butter
1/4 cup (60ml) milk

Caramel Icing (this is optional of course. I opted not to use icing on mine!)
1 1/2 cups (225g) icing sugar, sifted
1 tbs milk
2 tbs golden syrup
30g unsalted butter, softened

To make the icing, beat all ingredients together with a wooden spoon.

Preheat the oven to 180C. Grease muffin tins.
Sift flour into large bowl with maltesers, sugar, baking powder and 1/2 tsp salt.
In a separate bowl beat together egg, sour cream, vanilla, butter and milk, then fold mixture into dry ingredients until just combined. Pour into muffin pans and bake for 16-20 mins, until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Cool slightly in the pan, then remove to cool completely.
Spread icing over muffins, then decorate with a whole Malteser.


p.s. As i was saying, what you see in the picture were my second batch (made on Sunday). I was craving them so much and had forgotten to take a pic of my first batch! for this second batch, i made them in smaller muffin tins( which meant 6 in total) - so what you see is not quite as huge as what were delivered to the cafe this morning. Having said that, i cut down on the sugar for this batch, which i have to say -resulted in a less satisfactory muffin, so my advise is follow the recipe word for word - and make them in jumbo sized muffin tins!