Muffin, Muffin?

Care to guess what I made last night? ;)

My husband has this thing... he needs muffins. It's as if he can't function during a normal workday without a muffin. We had bagels and pancake batter in the fridge, breakfast cookies in the freezer, and homemade granola bars on the counter, and he was complaining that there wasn't anything to eat for breakfast. *face palm*

And then I have this thing... I don't like making muffins. It's nothing against muffins as a whole, it's moreso about the recipes. When I worked at a cafe we had the best, fluffiest, most gorgeous muffins in the world, and it seems like I have yet to find a muffin recipe that compares (I hate flat muffins with a passion). So while I occassionally suck it up and make muffins for my beloved, far too often I let him buy them so I don't have to go through the disgrace of making sub-par muffins again. Right now, however, we are keeping funds tight. So when he asked if he could buy muffins last night, and I said no, I felt a little cold-hearted. It wasn't fair to him, who seems to have some sort of a dependancy on the stupid things, to have to go through withdrawl simply because I have high standards for muffin recipes. (As another aside, muffin mixes are banned in my house. Just gross.)

Anyway, I shopped for muffin recipes last night through Pinterest and Google, looking for pictures that recalled all of the wonderful mornings I had of making muffins with ginormous peaks on them. And you know what I found? I found a great start!

I saw a picture of Blueberry Muffins that looked peaked and pretty, and even though I didn't have any blueberries, I decided that I could make it work for chocolate chip muffins, too. I tweaked here and there, and was a little sceptical when I saw the batter, but when they came out of the oven... *sigh!* My heart fluttered! They were perfect! Now, chocolate chip muffins are actually some of my least favorite, but these? These were magnificent! Here's the actual recipe I used for a dozen chocolate chip muffins (and sorry there are no pictures, they got stacked over night so they aren't pretty anymore!)

The Best Chocolate Chip Muffins:
2 c. flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 c. oil
2 eggs
1/2 c. buttermilk
1 c. sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 c. chocolate chips

In a large bowl, mix together wet ingredients and sugar. In a separate bowl, stir together flour, salt and baking powder. Add flour mixture to wet ingredients and stir just until combined. Fold in chocolate chips.
Fill 12 greased or lined muffin cups 2/3 - 3/4 of the way full. Sprinkle with raw/coarse sugar. Bake at 375 for 20 - 25 minutes!

If you're looking for a bit more of a refined muffin, substitute almond extract for the vanilla and add in 1/3 c. sliced almonds!

Mrs. VanderLeek ;)