Delicious Chocolate and Marshmallow Muffins

So my girlfriend and I just finished our exams after a long year of hard work at university and had no idea what to do with ourselves. We constantly found ourselves in a position of: what now?

So we did this! Unfortunately we only decided to make an instructable halfway through the process. I do hope you enjoy the read and that you will try them yourself, they really are quite something.

PS yes i do actually help with the actual making, I am usually the one doing most of the mixing and fetching, but I am also the photographer (@ucrcc_photography) so you will mostly see my girlfriend in the photos.

We also went for a hike and took some cute self portraits, let me know if you want to learn how to take selfies that aren't "selfies"!

250 ml Boiling water
180 ml Cacao, sifted
125 ml Milk
5 ml Vanilla essence
500 ml Cake Flower (280 g)
7 ml Baking Soda
2,5 ml Salt
250 ml Butter, room temperature (250 g)
315 ml Soft Brown Sugar (250 g)
180 ml White sugar (150 g)
4 Eggs

Marshmallows if you want to add a little extra to the muffin.

We did not have brown sugar, so we only used white sugar and it was not a problem at all. Try both and let me know what you prefer!

No, you do not need apples or bananas, that was just for decoration and balancing the other ingredients.

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius (356 Fahrenheit) and leave it to work on the batter.

Mix the boiling water and sifted cacao until you have a smooth mixture. Add milk and vanilla essence and mix it again.

Sift the cake flower, baking soda and salt in another mixing bowl.

Mix the butter, brown sugar and white sugar until it has a light colour and has a soft/fluffy appearance. Add the eggs one at a time and mix it thoroughly after each egg.

Now it is time to add it all together. Take turns to add bits of the cacao and flower mixtures to the butter mixture. Start and end by adding flower and make sure that you mix it thoroughly after each time you add something.

Prepare a muffin tray, we used Spray and Cook, and add batter to each of the cups. Put it in the oven for about 20 minutes or until it properly baked. My mother's trick is to listen if it is still "singing". It works like this, you take it out of the oven and carefully listen to each of the muffins up close, don't get your hair in the food!, if you can hear a slight crackling sound (singing) it is still slightly raw. Think about a shower, if you are still singing, you are not finished yet! Alternatively you can just go all out savage like my girlfriend and poke it with stuff. *looks at camera like Jim in The Office*

After the 20 minutes have passed, leave the muffins out to cool down.

If you want to do the marshmallow thing, remove the muffins from the oven 5 minutes early. Now place a marshmallow on each of the muffins and put it back in the oven for the remainder of the time. When you remove the muffins at the end, just press down on the marshmallows to cover the muffins.

We really enjoyed making these, but we enjoyed decorating and eating them even more!

Thank you for reading this short and sweet (see what i did there!) instructable, let me know what you think and post some photos if you made them!

Please vote for me if you think we deserve it and go have a look at some of the other amazing entries the competition has!

Also go and have a look at my other instructables, there is quite a range of things there!