Chocolate Chip Muffins...E.Z. Update

As I mentioned in posts for the past month, I have been using what I have rather than shopping.  My grocery bill for the month has consisted of 1 small bottle of olive oil, 2 loaves of bread and a box of vanilla wafers, though TheHub has bought fruit twice.

The other night Son3 wanted "something sweetish but not too sweet".  Usually I would have a White Lily chocolate chip muffin mix in the pantry, but not then and I couldn't go buy one until the no shopping challenge was over.  We googled recipes and found one here that had 5 star reviews, so we decided to try it.

The only thing I did differently was to omit the chopped nuts because Son3 hates nuts (How does anyone hate nuts?)  I love a recipe that can be made quickly using a minimum of dishes.  For this recipe I used one mixing bowl, a cup measure, wooden spoon, regular spoon and muffin tin.  I probably should have used a teaspoon measure but my regular spoon measures exactly 1 teaspoon and I can eyeball the half teaspoon of salt.

                                                        Chocolate Chip Muffins

2 cups flour
1/3 cup, packed, light brown sugar
1/3 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup milk
1/2 cup butter, melted
2 eggs lightly beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 12 oz. package chocolate chips ( I used 1/2 package cause that is what I had on hand.  It was enough)
1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  In a medium bowl mix together all the dry ingredients. In a separate bowl ( yeah right) combine the milk melted butter , eggs and vanilla and stir to completely combine.  Pour over the dry ingredients and stir until it is well mixed.  Add the chocolate chips and nuts and blend thoroughly.  Spoon into 12 greased regular sized muffin cups.  Bake for  15-20 minutes or until a toothpick cake tester inserted into the middle of a center muffin comes out clean.  Cool for 5 minutes on a wire rack then remove from the muffin tin to finish cooling. (Unless you are like us and just go ahead and eat them hot.  The 5 minute wait will prevent melted chocolate from burning your mouth).  If you have any left they can be left covered at room temperature for one day.  For longer storage pop them in the freezer.

These were a delicious, not too sweet muffin and not too large muffin.  The texture was slightly denser than a cake, but held together well.  We are going to try variations using the basic muffin mix, substituting sunflower oil for the melted butter. We decided we would try strawberries, blueberries, cherries,  and peaches when each comes in season.  We are also going to try some with butterscotch chips and some with combination chocolate chips and peanut butter chips.  Will be sure to get back to you on how the various muffins taste.

Update:


This morning I made a variation of this muffin.  All the dry ingredients remained the same, but I used 1/3 cup plain yogurt  ( had some about to spoil) and 1/3  cup milk.  Instead of melted butter I used 1/2 cup  sunflower oil, and rather than chocolate chips I used a 1 pint bag of thawed frozen blueberries.  Because the blueberries were unsweetened, the overall muffin was less sweet than one made with chocolate chips, but it was still good and actually almost perfect for a breakfast muffin.  I am not sure how I feel about the brown sugar in a fruit muffin.  I think next time I will omit the brown sugar and increase the white.  The richer brown sugar taste clashes with the mild blueberry flavor.
You will notice the picture of the blueberry muffin is much darker than the picture of the chocolate chip muffin.  this was the result of a user error and not a recipe thing . (Lesson 1,453,217:  Don't get busy doing something in a remote part of the house when muffins are in the oven)

                                                           Blueberry Muffins