I try to make muffins every other day, sometimes I succeed in making a muffin that everyone loves and they are all eaten up in a flash and there are other times I don’t quiet hit the spot and the muffins stand on the cupboard till they turn a lighter shade of green.

These chocolate chip beauties hit the spot, the look like vanilla cupcakes, but one bit and there is just no turning back.

Whenever I bake muffins, I always pack a couple for my dad to take to work for him and his friends to have during tea time. While I was packing my dad’s lunch bag this morning, my mother saw me looking for the muffin container and she screamed at me do not give those muffins away they were so delicious.

When I first came across this recipe, I didn’t really want to make it, since one of the wet ingredients just happens to be coconut oil,  when I think coconut oil, I think of the oil my mother used to make hot in the microwave and rub into my hair over weekends… I don’t think that is the same oil in this instance, but never the less, I bought a tub, yes you read right tub, they do not come in small containers or bottles they come in 250g or bigger tubs, to stop me from conjuring up memories of my hair oil I chose the odourless one.

All in all the oil is hard and needs to be melted in the microwave for a couple of seconds and it resembles normal cooking oil when it is in its liquid form.

When I asked my priest’s wife once for a recipe she told me to use coconut oil when cooking because she only uses it. My dad told me straight his not eating coconut flavoured cabbage or dhal so I should just drop that thought right there and then.

The outcome, the muffins stay a pale yellow colour as it does use normal castor sugar and not brown sugar, which make me worry while baking but as soon as the cake tester came out clean, out they came to cool before nibbling on them, the fun part picking out the chocolate chip chunks. I am not sure about you, but I prefer a milk chocolate chocolate chip rather than a dark chocolate chocolate chip.

Oh and before I forget to mention, I finally learnt how to make vegan buttermilk sooo much better than the store bought amazi you find on the shelves.

Ingredients:

• 1 x batch vegan buttermilk ( 250ml soy milk+1 x Tbsp lemon juice = Whisk and let stand for 5 minutes).
• 2 ¼ x cups cake flour, sifted.
• 1 x cup castor sugar.
• 3 x tsp baking powder.
• ½ x tsp salt.
• 1 x tsp vanilla essence.
• ½ x cup coconut oil, melted.
• 1 ½ x cups chocolate chips… I wasn’t too strict on this ingredients measurement.

Method:

• In a bowl, add the cake flour, castor sugar, salt and baking powder, mix to combine everything.
• Make a well in the center and pour in the buttermilk, vanilla essence and oil.
• Gently fold in the wet ingredients, do not overmix and the batter should be lumpy but no visible streaks of the flour mixture.
• Add in the chocolate chips and fold again.
• Fill a greased muffin pan with the mixture.
• Pop into a preheated oven and bake at 180 degrees for 20 – 30 minutes or until the cake tester comes out clean.
• Allow to cool for 10 minutes in the pan, before turning out onto a cooling rack and allowing to cool completely.