Madhouse recipe : Choc-cherry muffins

Every Tuesday breaktime, the kids in our school can go and get free fresh fruit delivered in big crates by a local farmer. Last week, it was cherries and just as I was heading home after a long day at work, the school cook popped his head out of the window and asked if I wanted to take a couple of punnets of leftover cherries home with me. The kids ate some straight away, but there were still lots that needed using up, so I decided to make some sweet treats with them. The first bake was these muffins, which we've been eating for breakfast and dessert because they're so tasty, with the cherries adding moistness and a lovely tart flavour to offset the sweetness of the chocolate.

Choc-cherry muffins

ingredients :

200g softened butter

150g sugar

4 eggs

200g flour

1 tsp baking powder

pinch of salt

splash of milk

100g chocolate (dark or milk - your choice)

300g cherries, pitted and halved

Heat the oven to 200°C. Cream together the butter and sugar. I always use salted butter but you can use unsalted if you prefer.

Beat in the eggs, one by one. Don't panic if it curdles - it'll all come good when you add the flour.

Sift in the flour, baking powder and salt and fold to combine. Add a splash of milk as it starts to come together and stop as soon as it's mixed - don't overwork it.

Break the chocolate into small chunks and stir through, along with two thirds of the cherries

Use the mixture to fill a silicon muffin tray (or you could use a greased or parchment-lined metal tin).

Press the remaining cherries into the tops of the muffins.

Bake for 15-20 minutes until firm and springy when you gently press them.

As we were having a bit of a kitchen clearout, I had a rummage in the cupboards and found some baking kits to use up too - a double chocolate bake-in-the-box loaf cake mix and a cheesecake mix.

Both simple and fun to make, surprisingly tasty and they used up more of the cherries !

Adding to this month's #KitchenClearout linky as it used up some very ripe cherries.