Cinnamon, coffee and chocolate muffins

Christmas Baking 3 and December We Should Cocoa challenge
I'm sure that everyone has their own tried and tested muffin recipe. I like recipes which use oil instead of butter. I found this one in a French food magazine and it looked interesting, having yoghurt, chocolate and coffee as two of the ingredients, plus one of my favourite spices- cinnamon. It's a lovely Christmassy spice. Cinnamon is the added ingredient in December's We Should Cocoa challenge, so am going to use this post as my offering.
Muffins are quick and easy to make, and these are no exception.

For 12 muffins:

250g plain flour
2 tspns cinnamon
21/2 tspns baking powder
1/2 tspn bicarbonate of soda
130g caster sugar
1 egg
80ml oil - I used rapeseed
250g yoghurt
75ml cold strong coffee
12 squares of dark chocolate
Chocolate coated coffee beans to decorate

Preheat oven 180C/gas 4


Grease a 12 hole muffin tin, or use muffin cases.
In a bowl, mix together the flour, cinnamon, baking powder, bicarb.and sugar.
In another bowl beat the egg and add the oil, yoghurt and coffee. Mix these together.
Fold in the flour mixture carefully - don't overmix, a few lumps are fine.
Put the muffin cases, if using, into the muffin tin.
Fill the cases half full with batter, then put a square of chocolate on the batter and fill the cases up with the remainder.
Bake in the middle of the oven for about 25 mins.
Cool on a wire rack.
Decorate the muffins with a chocolate bean before serving.

I love the melted chocolate in the centre of these muffins. The texture is quite different from my usual recipe - coarser but still soft. The cinnamon and coffee add another layer to the flavour. I'll certainly make these again.

We Should Cocoa is a monthly challenge hosted by Choclette of Chocolate Log blog and Chele of Chocolate teapot blog, and sometimes by guest hosts. Choclette is December's host and she has chosen cinnamon as the added ingredient. You can find more information on the challenge here .