Chili brownie muffins

A long time ago, I was very excited to discover a bar of chocolate flavored with chili. Of course, I bought it, ran home and had a bite immediately. It didn't taste that great, though.... Well, ever since then, it has been sitting in my shelf, half eaten.

This Saturday, Tompa was about to return from another business trip, so I wanted to surprise him with something sweet. I browsed through some recipes, but realized there wasn't much ingredients in the house... Lazy as I was, instead of moving my butt towards the store, decided to browse more recipes, hoping to find something not-much-in-the-kitchen-friendly. And I really did. The original recipe calls for 2 eggs which I substituted for 1 banana, butter (I went for margarine) and dark chocolate, that I FINALLY had a reason to substitute for that old-ass chili chocolate... The whole recipe was a brownie, originally, but since I only had enough ingredients for a half of it, I used some muffin cups instead. YES, I pretty much changed the whole thing...

The result was more than pleasant.

CHILI BROWNIE MUFFINS:

prep time: 40 minutes
makes: 6 muffins (or 20x25 cm baking tray of brownies)

• 200 g dark chili flavored chocolate
• 50 g margarine
• 1 banana
• 1 tbsp brown sugar
• 1/2 cup flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 50 g hazel nuts

Pre-heat the oven for 175 degrees Celsius. Break the chocolate into small pieces, place into a pan together with the margarine and melt carefully, so it doesn't burn.
Meantime whisk together banana with sugar. Add this to the chocolate melt.
In a separate bowl, mix the flour with baking powder and the roughly chopped hazel nuts.
Mix both bowls together, you want to achieve a really thick and sticky batter. Pour the batter into the baking or muffin tray and place into the oven.
Bake for 20 - 25 minutes. You know they re done when the toothpick pierced through the cake comes out clean.

Well, even though the chili chocolate on its own was rather a disappointment, the muffins where a true success. Next time I plan on adding a bit of vanilla flavor and substitute the hazel nuts with almonds or walnuts.

Suganya from Tasty Palettes is going vegan this month, so this little spicy devil treat is for her to cheer her up! Here it comes, all the way to your Vegan Venture, my dear... I have been vegan myself for more than a year and still tend to be that way 90% of my eating time....