#MuffinMonday is a group of muffin loving bakers who get together once a month to bake muffins to brighten their Mondays. There isn’t a theme to #MuffinMonday posts so anything goes, as long as it’s a muffin!

You can see all our of lovely muffins by following our Pinterest board. Updated links for all of our past events and more information about Muffin Monday can be found on our home page.

I had planned on being creative with my muffin offering today with an original recipe. That particular recipe still has some tweaking to do so it’s going to have to wait for its grand debut.

Instead, I rushed to the handy dandy 50 Muffins booklet from one of my Food Network magazines.

These Cherry Chocolate Muffins can’t even pretend to be a health food. These are a dessert muffin, 100%. And they’re absolutely delicious!

I wasn’t wanting the kids to have any of the chocolate deliciousness before dinner, but they managed to sneak away with a muffin during their photo shoot. Hey, you all know by now that I love including photos of kid-approved recipes being eaten by the cute (yes, I’m biased) children, so who was I to stop them?! Following the snapping of the camera, the muffins were taken away.

Firecracker helped bake these muffins with a sweet friend. I sent 3 home with her. She claimed she wasn’t going to share them with her husband because they were too good. I’ll have too follow up on that report. I brought 6 over for a pizza night at another friend’s house. Her kids were picking the crumbs off the muffin liners. Seriously, guys, they’re that good. I left the rest for Treat and my husband, as Firecracker and I were off to the airport the next morning to reunite with our best friends from Ohio, who now live in Texas.

With all the insanity, it’s amazing I’m getting this post typed up for this month’s Muffin Monday! I’m quite thankful for the crazy long travel day and the early bedtime from both of my boys. “Are you trying to set a world record for speed typing?” asks my husband. Told you I’m cutting it close!

This recipe makes 15 muffins.

Cherry Chocolate Muffins

Ingredients:

• 6 tbsp butter
• 1/2 C mini semisweet chocolate chips
• 1 3/4 C flour
• 3/4 C sugar
• 1/2 C cocoa powder
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1 C frozen cherries, thawed, drained and chopped
• 1 egg
• 1 C milk
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/4 tsp almond extract

Steps:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line 12-15 muffin cups with liners, or grease.
2. Put butter and chocolate in a microwave safe dish and melt, stirring occasionally.
3. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking powder, salt, and baking soda. Stir in the cherries.
4. In another bowl, whisk together the egg, milk, and extracts.
5. Combine the wet ingredients into the dry, then stir in the melted chocolate and butter.
6. Divide batter among prepared muffin cups. Bake 24 minutes, until a toothpick inserted comes out cleanly.

*This recipe is adapted from Food Network Magazine*

And don’t forget to check out these other muffin recipes:

Apricot Pistachio Matcha Muffins by Farm Fresh Feasts

Blueberry Buttermilk Muffins by A Day in the Life on the Farm

Cherry Chocolate Muffins by Sew You Think You Can Cook

Garlic Onion Muffins by Passion Kneaded

Muffins Florentine by Karen’s Kitchen Stories

Strawberry Yogurt Muffins by Food Lust People Love