Cherry Topped Chocolate Mini Muffins

I bought some tart dried cherries at Costco for Doug for ice cream add ins. He did not appear very enthusiastic - I think he really wanted sweet cherry syrup. So I decided make some mini Cherry Topped Chocolate Sourdough Muffins with part of them.



   

Ingredients:

Cherry Jam:

• 4 ounces dried tart cherries
• 2 ounces boiling water
• 1 ounce water
• 1/4 sugar + 2 tablespoons
• 1/4 shredded apples (I used about 1/2 a Fuji apple)

Chocolate Muffin:

• 12 ounces sourdough (unfed is fine)
  (** or**  6 ounces water  plus 6 ounces all-purpose flour, mixed together into a thick batter)
• 1/4    cup coconut oil, melted
• 1.5      tsp vanilla
• 1 egg
• 3/8    cup cocoa powder
  (or l/3 cup + 1 heaping tablespoon cocoa powder)
• 1.5 ounces flour
• 3/4    cup sugar 
• 1    teaspoon baking powder
•  1/2    tsp cinnamon
•  1/2    tsp salt
• 1/4 cup mini semi-sweet chocolate chips
  (I ran regular chips through a mini food processor to pulverize them)

Instructions:

1.  Re-hydrate the dried cherries by mixing 2 ounces boiling water into 4 ounces of cherries. Let sit for 20 minutes or so.
2. Add another ounce of water, apple shreds, and sugar. Microwave on full power for a minute or so, stir.  Continue microwaving on about 50% power, stirring every few minutes to thicken. Let cool a bit.
3. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees with a rack in the middle of the oven.
4. Grease the wells of two 24 hole mini muffin pans.
5. Mix together all the wet ingredients (the sourdough starter, coconut oil, vanilla, and egg) until well combined.
6. In another bowl, whisk together the cocoa, additional 1.5 ounces floir, sugar, baking powder,  cinnamon and salt. Whisk so flour and cocoa are evenly distributed.
7. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredient, blend well to spread chocolate mix evenly though batter. (Scrape sides and bottom of bowl as needed.)
8. Blend in mini chocolate chip pieces.
9. Using a small cookie scoop, place one level scoop of batter into each well of the first pan.
10. Drop about 1/2 teaspoon of cherry jam on top of each muffin.
    (Or you could mix in cherry jam with chocolate pieces, but I looked the cherries on top.)
11. Bake first pan for ~ 9 to 10 minutes while scooping rest of batter into second pan.
    (You will fill another 20 or so mini muffins. I had about 1/4 cup of cherry jam left over.)
12. Remove first pan, and place second in oven.
    (Second pan will bake for ~9 to 10 minutes as well.)
13. Remove cooked muffins from pan after cooling for a minute or two, and let them cool on a wire rack.

Carole's Notes:

This recipe made about 44 mini muffins.
The muffins are 50% sweeter than the Mini Chocolate Sourdough Muffins that I adapted for this recipe. 

The jam recipe was adapted from https://www.loveandoliveoil.com/2015/09/chocolate-cherry-tart.html