Tony Jackman’s Peppermint Crisp muffins. (Photo: Tony Jackman) 
I often associate muffins with breakfast – we do often choose them at that end of the day – but the other day I made these the afternoon before, intending them for breakfast. During the night, I got the munchies. You know what happened next.
These easy muffins can be baked in an oven or air fryer (which, to a degree, is much the same thing anyway). I used my basic muffin mixture and stirred in crushed Peppermint Crisp at the end.
I considered adding cocoa to the mixture, then thought about it and concluded that it would make the mixture dark (which it obviously would), and the problem with that was that I needed the chocolate of the Peppermint Crisp itself to be visible, and if the whole thing was chocolate-hued that just wouldn’t work.
Also, I wanted the little shards of green crystals to melt into the mixture, visibly. As you can see in the photo, leaving the cocoa out solved that potential problem.
How to crush a bar of Peppermint Crisp? I’m an old hand at this, from the days when I first hit on the idea of making cheat Peppermint Crisp ice cream (you half-thaw a tub of shop-bought vanilla ice cream, stir the crushed chocolate and shards of a few Peppermint Crisp bars in, and refreeze).
When making these muffins, don’t unwrap the slim chocolate bars first. Hold them side-on on a work surface and use the blunt end of a knife to thwack the edge of the bar five or six times from one end to the other. Then turn it over and do the same at the other side. It has the benefit of helping you release some of your frustrations, so it’s best to do this when someone has stripped your moer (Afrikaans colloquial for pissed you off).
Remove the wrapper and you have a pile of chocolate bits and green crystals.
I baked these in my air fryer oven, which is a countertop version of a large standard oven.
Tony’s Peppermint Crisp muffins
(Makes 6 large muffins)
Ingredients
Butter for greasing the muffin pan cavities
2 large eggs
125ml canola or sunflower oil
250ml full cream milk
250g castor sugar
400g self-raising flour
1 scant tsp salt
2 x 49g Peppermint Crisp bars
Method
Preheat a large air fryer oven to 180°C, or a regular oven to 200°C.
Grease the six cavities of a large muffin pan with butter.
In a large bowl, whisk 2 eggs, then add the canola/sunflower oil and the milk, stir, add the castor sugar and whisk well.
Sift the flour into the bowl and add the salt.
Mix the batter quickly, but don’t overwork it. Once it’s clearly smooth and combined, hands off that whisk.
Bash the living daylights out of the chocolate bars in their wrappers. The wrappers will break open while you do this. Pour the contents onto the work surface, discard the wrappers, and chop up any chocolate bits that are too big for your liking.
Sweep about 1 Tbsp of chocolate and shards to one side, and add the rest to the batter, stirring it in until well combined.
Spoon the mixture evenly into the six greased muffin cavities and sprinkle the remaining chocolate and shards on top.
Bake in the preheated 180°C air fryer oven, or the preheated 200°C big oven, for 20 to 25 minutes.
Turn the oven off and let them cool with the oven door slightly ajar.
You can do them in a small air fryer too, in greased or oil-sprayed foil muffin cups, but check them for doneness after 15 to 20 minutes as they may cook faster. They’re done when an inserted skewer comes out clean. DM
Tony Jackman is twice winner of the Galliova Food Writer of the Year award.
Follow Tony Jackman on Instagram @tony_jackman_cooks.