Malted Caramel Chocolate Chip Muffins

I wanted to make some muffins today and although I had milk, dark and white chocolate chips I decided I would make mine with the lovely caramel chocolate chips that I recently bought.  Those are simply delicious and I thought they would work so well in a muffin.

To add some additional flavour too I used some malted milk powder in the muffin mixture.  Malted milk goes well with caramel so I was sure it would work well.  However these muffins would be good without that addition and with any type of chocolate that one has on hand. 

Muffins are very easy to make, mixing the wet ingredients together and the dry ingredients together and then combining the two, without mixing too much, and the batter is ready to fill the cases and bake.

They take little time to bake too, so within an hour you can be eating warm muffins.

Mine turned out very well indeed, with a lovely flavour with a hint of malt and then the caramel chocolate.  The chips almost melt  in the baking to spread a little into the batter but still giving the hit of chocolate too.

Ingredients:

• 113g(1/2 cup) unsalted butter, softened and cooled
• 2 medium eggs(large in USA)
• 160ml(2/3 cup) buttermilk, or milk
• 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 260g(2 cups) plain flour
• 30g(3 tbsp) malted milk powder(optional)
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 135g(2/3 cup) soft brown sugar(or caster/granulated)
• 150g(1 cup) caramel chocolate chips(or whichever type you prefer)

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 190C/170C Fan/375 F.
2. Line a muffin tin with paper cases
3. In a large bowl place the flour, baking powder, malted milk powder, sugar and salt and mix together.
4. Add the chocolate chips and mix again, then set aside.
5. In another bowl add the eggs, buttermilk and vanilla extract and whisk to combine.
6. Pour that mixture into the dry ingredients and then add the melted butter too.  
7. Mix together until everything is just combined.  Do not over mix.
8. Portion the batter into the muffin cases and bake in the oven for 18 to 20 minutes, until a skewer poked into the centre comes out clean.  
9. Remove from the oven and transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.