The Mississippi mud muffins are typical American chocolate muffins, often found in coffee shops like Starbucks, Costa, etc. I first tasted them at Starbucks, drawn by this chocolate apotheosis! The Mississippi mud muffins are, in fact, cocoa muffins with a soft chocolate cream heart, garnished with plenty of chocolate chips… what’s more sinful than that? And since temptation is naturally within everyone’s reach, let me tell you, there’s no need to search for a Starbucks to enjoy these soft breakfast sweets; making them at home is really easy and quite quick, with guaranteed results even using gluten-free flour.
The Mississippi mud muffin recipe I propose starts from the classic American muffin recipe, like blueberry muffins, appropriately modified to get the same softness and intense chocolate flavor as the Starbucks muffins. For the soft chocolate heart, I used a chocolate and hazelnut spread, hardened in the freezer to prevent it from mixing with the batter during baking (as in this recipe for muffins with Nutella heart). As for the buttermilk, essential for achieving the typical softness of American muffins, if you can’t find it, you can replace it with a mixture of milk and yogurt as I did. Traditionally, Mississippi mud muffins are served for breakfast, but I’d be lying if I told you that, once they’re nicely ready, you’ll manage to wait until breakfast time!
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- Difficulty: Very easy
- Cost: Very cheap
- Preparation time: 20 Minutes
- Portions: 12 Pieces
- Cooking methods: Oven
- Cuisine: American
- Seasonality: All seasons
Ingredients for 12 chocolate muffins with a soft heart
If you are celiac, instead of all-purpose flour, you can use 170 g of finely ground rice flour + 30 g of cornstarch; remember to check that the following ingredients have the label “gluten-free”: unsweetened cocoa, rice flour, cornstarch, baking powder, chocolate chips, hazelnut spread.
- 2 eggs (medium)
- 2/3 cup sugar
- 1/2 cup butter (at room temperature)
- 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (for gluten-free muffins: 1 1/3 cups rice flour + 1/4 cup cornstarch)
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 2/3 cup buttermilk (or: 1/3 cup milk + 1/3 cup plain yogurt)
- 1 pinch salt
- 1/3 cup dark chocolate chips
- 5 tbsp hazelnut spread (or chocolate spread)
Tools
- 1 Chocolate Mold silicone, 12 cavities
- 1 Bowl
- 1 Wooden Spoon
- 12 Muffin Cups for muffins
- 1 Muffin Pan 12-cup
How to make Starbucks-style Mississippi Mud Muffins
To prepare the Mississippi mud muffins, start by filling 12 silicone molds (chocolate molds or even ice cube molds work, like these or these ice cube trays) with some chocolate or hazelnut spread (1). Keep them in the freezer for at least half an hour; if you don’t have suitable molds, you can also form mounds slightly larger than a hazelnut on a baking tray lined with parchment paper.
Cut the butter into cubes and leave it at room temperature for about 30 minutes, until it has the consistency of an ointment (2). To speed things up, you can place it in the oven with the light on. If you don’t have buttermilk, substitute it by mixing in a glass 80 g of milk with 80 g of plain yogurt (3).
When the butter is soft, mix it in a bowl with the granulated sugar (4). Work it for a few minutes with a wooden spoon, until you have a cream (5). Then add the eggs (6) and continue mixing. Remember that to get the right consistency of American muffins you should NOT beat the ingredients with an electric mixer, nor work the batter for too long.
At this point, add the buttermilk or the milk and yogurt mixture (7) and work it for another minute, to blend the ingredients well. Then add the cocoa, baking powder, and flour (8) and stir briefly, until you have a homogeneous and rather thick batter (9).
Line a muffin pan with paper liners, then place a scant spoonful of batter (10), filling them almost halfway (11). Mix the chocolate chips into the remaining batter (12), saving a handful to decorate the surface of the Mississippi mud muffins.
At this point, remove the molds from the freezer and unmold the chocolate cream cubes; place them in the center of each mud muffin, pressing down slightly (13). Cover the Mississippi mud muffins with the remaining batter and garnish the top with the reserved chocolate chips (14). Bake the Mississippi mud muffins in a preheated oven at 350°F (static) for about 25 minutes. When cooked, remove them from the oven (15) and let them cool completely before unmolding.
Serve the Mississippi mud muffins for breakfast or a snack and let yourself be tempted by their soft chocolate heart!
Storage
These chocolate muffins remain soft and fragrant for 3 to 4 days under a glass cloche or in a cake container.
