Chocolate Chocolate Chip Muffins

What you are looking at is therapy masquerading in the form of a chocolate muffin. These muffins did my heart good. It’s been so long since I have baked something just because I wanted to, just because I had a free hour and extra chocolate. It was a doosey of a day (how do you spell doosey?) — an MRI for my knee, my first practice GRE (which didn’t go too well, by the way… sigh). But it was a sweet day, too. We got home early and the weather was beautiful. We went for a walk, ate our dinner on our front steps. And then I came inside and baked these comforting, chocolatey muffins.

I’m learning to take the good with the bad. The nice weather comes with the inability to run in it. I enjoy the short day knowing that the week will be longer since we’re both working the weekend. Baking delectable chocolate muffins with the tastiest muffin tops I have ever enjoyed has the inescapable consequence of producing unattractive muffin tops hanging over the tops of my jeans

Ha! You thought I was going to be all philosophical today! Well, I thought about it. I considered the ups and the downs of our current week, our current lives. I pondered the possibility of flunking the GREs and the chance I might become vegetative through inactivity due to my multiplying injuries.

And then I ate another muffin.

Oh dear, such morbid humor. Forgive me. Would you like a muffin? I’m finding they solve most of life’s problems.

Goodness. The whole point of this post was to make an announcement. You see, on Saturday, I’m participating in my very first food blogging event, and I couldn’t BE more excited. Actually, it has very little to do with food blogging at all — it’s an amazing opportunity to link passionate bakers to a compassionate cause. This Saturday, food bloggers around the country are holding bake sales as a part of Share our Strength’s Great American Bake Sale. Share our Strength is a charity dedicated to ending childhood hunger in America, and all proceeds from the bake sales — which are being held in 20-some states on Saturday — will go to benefit their effort.

The Chicago sale will be held at Smash Cake Bakery, 2961 N. Lincoln Ave. Chicago IL 60657 (at Wellington), from 12pm to 3pm. I’ll be there from around noon until 2:00 peddling (our) wares, and you better believe I am bringing it on the brownie front. Even better, there will be contributions from bakers all over Chicagoland who have actual skills, including professionals (check out Foiled Cupcakes, In Good Taste, and Foodie Reflections, for example).

If you’re in Chicago, it’d be GREAT to see you this weekend — can you really say no to sugar and butter for a great cause? If you’re not in Chicago, check out this post from In Good Taste that has a list of where to find all the National Food Blogger Bake Sales around the country. There are sales in KC and DC… but if that’s where you are, please don’t feel like I’m calling you out (Mom. Princess.).

Onto the muffins!  (Finally).

Double Chocolate Chip Muffins

Adapted from King Arthur Flour

Yields 12 large muffins

• 2/3 cup (2 ounces) cocoa
• 1 ¾ cups (7 1/4 ounces) all purpose flour
• 1 ¼  cups (9 3/8 ounces) light brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• ¾  teaspoon espresso powder, optional – I used instant coffee powder and didn’t regret it
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• ¾  teaspoon salt
• 1 cup (6 ounces) chocolate chips
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup (8 ounces) milk
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 2 teaspoons vinegar
• ½  cup (4 ounces, 1 stick) butter, melted

Preheat the oven to 400°F. Line a muffin tin with paper cups, or grease the cups (well!! You’ll be glad you did).

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the cocoa, flour, sugar, baking powder, espresso powder, baking soda, salt and chocolate chips. Be sure to break up any clumps of brown sugar (it tends to clump). Set aside.

In a large measuring cup or medium-sized mixing bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, vanilla and vinegar. Add these, along with the melted butter, to the dry ingredients, stirring just to blend. (One doesn’t beat muffins, one simply mixes them. Be gentle, or you’ll have tough muffins.)

Scoop the batter into the prepared muffin tin; the cups will be heaped with batter, and the muffin will bake into a “mushroom” shape, creating fantastic muffin tops.

The suggested baking time was 20 to 25 minutes, but I took mine out at 18 minutes and they were a tiny bit overdone, so be careful. A cake tester inserted in the center of a muffin should come out clean, and the muffin tops should spring back when lightly pressed.

Remove the muffins from the oven, and after 5 minutes remove them from the pan, allowing them to cool for about 15 minutes on a rack before peeling off the muffin papers.

Tagged as: chocolate, muffins