Double chocolate apology muffins

So, since I figure there's a lot of dudes out who will be needing to apologise over the next few weeks - whether it's for hogging the TV or being delivered home by the constabulary after drowning their sorrows following England defeats (I'm only going on what happened last night here) - I decided it would be a good idea for us all to have a chocolate recipe to hand. The perfect way to say sorry.

These muffins contain a secret surprise in the form of a delicious dark chocolate ganache piped into the middle. You can, of course, leave that out if you can't be arsed but it might be the tipping point that gets the object of your desires into the bedroom for the first time, or the Mrs to indulge a fantasy that she has so far resisted. It could be that neither of these things as a result of adding the ganache happen but are you able to live with not knowing?

How it's done

The one downside to this recipe is that you do need to go and buy something called tulip cases from the supermarket. Pick your cashier wisely when going through the checkout with these, since you don't want to damage your reputation. 

• 165g butter (at room temperature)
• 300g caster sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 3 eggs
• 70g self raising flour
• 200g plain flour
• 1 teaspoon bi-carbonate of soda
• 70g cocoa powder
• 222ml milk
• 25ml malt vinegar
• Large bar of milk chocolate

Get the oven on to 160C if it's a fancy fan one, otherwise it's 180C, and put 12 tulip cases into a muffin tin. Measure out the milk into a jug, add the vinegar, stir and put to one side. 

Next, cream the butter and sugar together in a large bowl - you can do this with a mixer or by hand if you want to maintain a shred of masculinity. Once they're mixed together, add the eggs and vanilla extract and stir. Now add all the dry ingredients (the flour, bi-carb and coca powder, you bell). They don't need to be sifted, who's got time for that anyways? Finally, add the milk and vinegar mixture into the bowl and mix everything together to make an awesome, chocolate batter. 

Grab a couple of normal dessert spoons and use those to fill each tulip case to about 2/3 full. When that's done, take your chocolate bar and chop it up into chunks before throwing a few on to the top of each muffin. Get these into the middle of the oven for around 25-30 minutes.

If you are going the whole hog and want to get the ganache in there too, you will also need to buy 150ml of double cream and 150g dark chocolate (it's quicker and easier to just buy a bag of dark chocolate chips). Get the cream into a pan and bring it to the boil. When it starts to bubble, turn off the heat and throw in the chocolate chips. After a couple of minutes, stir it to make a nice, smooth ganache. Leave this to cool for around 15 minutes.

When the muffins have been out of the oven a few minutes, get a sharp knife and run it down through one of the cracks in the top. Wiggle it around inside the muffin to create the hole for the ganache. Take the cooled ganache and stick it into a piping bag with a thin nozzle. Put the nozzle into the hole you've created and pipe ganache in until the muffin plumps up. Now just leave the muffins somewhere to cool completely.

There you are, you're done and clear to watch the rest of the World Cup in peace!