Here in the Balkans, we are nurturing a strong coffee drinking culture. Coffee is brought here by the Turks in the 14th and 15th centuries, and since then we've been mainly drinking Turkish coffee styles. Turkish coffee basically means pouring ground coffee into cold water, waiting for it to boil, and remove it just before it is about to simmer. That coffee is usually served with other Turkish and Middle Eastern confectionery like the Turkish delight or lokum, Qurabiye, Tulumba or similar.

In the turn of the 21st century, people in the Balkans began to massively switch to Western styles of coffee - mainly instant coffee. It is introduced here by the gastarbeiter, Yugoslav expats to Western Europe. The gastarbeiter, who settled in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland during the 1970s started bringing instant coffee with themselves during their visits to the home country. Locals very liked it, and soon after, instant coffee, as well as filter coffee found its way to the shelves of Balkan supermarkets.

Sweets that accompany coffee became westernized much later. Muffins, as the first pick among most Westerners, appeared just recently and was at first available only in cafeterias. The most common form is the chocolate and cocoa muffin.

If you prefer drinking coffee at home, like most people in the Balkans do, the best option is to make your own muffins. This is the recipe I am sticking to when making choco muffins myself.

• 200 g (1.5 cups) all-purpose wheat flour.
• 40 g (1.4 oz) cocoa powder.
• 150 g (1.3 cups) sugar.
• 1 tsp baking soda.
• 1 tsp vanilla extract.
• two large chicken eggs.
• 180ml (1.4 cups) dairy milk.
• 100ml (3/4 a cup) sunflower oil.
• 200g (1/2 lb) baking chocolate.

PREPARATION

Crush the baking chocolate into pellet-sized pieces and freeze.
Mix all dry ingredients in a bowl until it all becomes even. Do the same with all wet ingredients in another bowl, stir it thoroughly. Pour the dry portion into the wet one and stir until all becomes an even, compact mass. The dough needs to be creamy and sticky. Add the crushed chocolate from the freezer and stir further to make it all evenly distributed.

Fill the baking tray or paper liners to roughly 2/3 full. Heat the oven to 250C/475F and keep it empty to heat up for 10 minutes. Put the muffins and lower the oven temp to 180C/360F. Keep it in the oven for about 15 mins, but be watchful for the first time. (Speed of baking depends on many parameters like the total weight of dough, amount of muffins baked, whether you're using a metal tray, silicone tray or paper liners, etc). I use a fork to decide if the muffins are baked. It requires you to be cautious with oven and will kill the single muffin, but it is better than burning all of them.

SERVING

Now, of course, the sweetest part. As a bit traditionalist person, I still drink Turkish coffee most of the time. And I like it bitter. Sometimes I also drink bitter instant coffee. In any case, I like to have a muffin or couple to cut the bitterness.