Chocolate Raspberry Muffins

Most fruit muffins use whole berries tossed in flour, but those raspberries always end up in pockets and the rest of the muffin tastes plain. This recipe goes a smarter route. Canned raspberries get cooked down with their syrup into a thick, jammy reduction that swirls through the batter, putting raspberry flavor in every single bite. Cooking the berries also concentrates their flavor and removes excess water, which means muffins that aren’t soggy in the middle. The chocolate chips fold in alongside the jam for melty pockets that play against the tart fruit. Buttermilk keeps the crumb tender and reacts with the self-rising flour to give the tops their bakery-style dome. The 12-minute boil on the raspberries isn’t optional. Stop too soon and the jam is too loose to swirl; cook too long and it caramelizes into something more like fruit leather.

Kitchen Tips

• Cool the raspberry jam completely before folding into the batter. Hot jam melts the butter and breaks the emulsion.
• Don’t overmix the batter once the wet meets the dry. Stir just until the flour disappears; lumps are fine.
• Fold the jam in with a few quick strokes for a marbled effect, or stir more thoroughly for distributed raspberry flavor throughout.
• Fill the muffin cups three-quarters full for tall domed tops. Underfilling gives flat-topped muffins.
• Test for doneness with a toothpick. Some streaks of jam are fine, but raw batter means a couple more minutes.

Variations

• Use fresh or frozen raspberries instead of canned. Cook with 2 tablespoons of sugar to compensate for lost syrup sweetness.
• Add ½ teaspoon of vanilla extract or ¼ teaspoon of almond extract to the wet ingredients.
• Swap chocolate chips for white chocolate chips for a sweeter, milder version.