Strawberry Chocolate Bomb Muffins

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We had such great success at our holiday gf meetup cookie swap that we thought we attempt a springtime reprise with a baked goods potluck brunch. I had a hankering for strawberries, and I’m very into dark chocolate, so I created some muffins to share with the group. The ones I shared with my friends were pretty mild-mannered, but two muffins that didn’t make the lineup for the potluck were my (very successful) trial of adding A LOT of chocolate to them. I call them Strawberry Chocolate Bomb Muffins. My partner Jenn reports that eating them is like having fudge without having to go to one of those touristy places that make you watch them spread it on a slab of marble. If you wanted to make these muffins and were stranded on a desert island and had to forego the chocolate, you could, but you’d be sad and you’d have to change the name.
 
Strawberry Chocolate Bomb Muffins
 
1 ¾ cups all purpose gluten-free baking mix (I used Arrowhead Mills, which contains xanthan gum. If you use a blend that doesn’t include xanthan gum, I’d advise 1 ¼ teaspoons of it for this recipe.)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
1 cup plain unsweetened almond milk (or the milk-like product of your choice)
½ cup sugar
½ stick of melted butter
¼ cup vanilla yogurt (if you don’t have this, you can double the butter and add an additional ¼ cup sugar)
2 eggs
1 cup fresh or frozen strawberries, cut into smallish chunks
18 Xocai Dark Chocolate Nuggets (or do a mix of some with chocolate, some without)
 
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Sift flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt together and set aside. In a bowl, mix together the milk, sugar, butter, yogurt and eggs. Fold in the strawberries. Add the flour blend a bit at a time and stir until moistened. Pour batter into lined muffin tins 2/3rds full. Push an unwrapped nugget into the middle of the chosen muffins. It’s okay if it
doesn’t get completely covered with batter. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the cake part comes out clean. Let cool enough for the molten lava chocolate to not scald you – maybe ½ an hour or more. Makes 18 muffins.

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