Chocolate Chip Muffins!

There is nothing healthy about these.

Delicious, yes!

But not healthy!

I wanted to come up with a muffin recipe that suspends the chocolate chips (most recipes have the chips sinking to an unhappy demise at the bottom of the muffin, and that's not how they are in the stores, right?

So I wanted that result. I started with ideas for recipes from Food.com. I love the food sites, and muffins have a basic "base" that is virtually universal... 1 teaspoon of baking powder to one cup of flour... And if you add baking soda, then you have a different reaction going on when the liquids are added.

So I experimented and came up with this recipe and loved it... BUT... I'm going to show you what a difference the actual baking of the muffins makes.

For the muffins you'll need:

2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup white sugar

Mix all of that together in large bowl. (I doubled the batch and had plenty for the kids to sample for me, each batch makes about 12-14 muffins)

In another bowl mix together:

2 large eggs
1/2 cup oil (I used canola oil but coconut oil would be great in these)
2/3 cup soured milk (Add about one-half tablespoon lemon juice to milk and let it sit for about five minutes)

1 tablespoon molasses
2 teaspoons vanilla

Mix together.

Add to dry ingredients and mix by hand until all the dry ingredients are mixed in. Add in 6 oz bag of chocolate chips. I used Ghirardelli milk chocolate chips and they were marvelous, but then I used a combo of milk and dark chocolate for the last four muffins and they were exceptional! The bits of dark chocolate were a great balance.

Fill paper-lined muffin pans about 2/3 full.

Sprinkle tops with sugar, if desired. (More sugar??? NO BRAINER!!!)

Bake at 350° for about 14-16 minutes. I kept checking them because I like a tender outside so I didn't want to over-bake them. I used a toothpick to make sure they were done, and they came out great! For the most part....


Now here's the interesting part:

I sprayed one muffin tin with cooking spray and cooked the muffins without paper wrappers.

The other two trays I used paper wrappers.

And here's the difference:

The muffins in the plain tray weren't soft on the outside, they were kind of dull and almost crispy but not overdone... just crusty..

The wrapped muffins cooked more evenly and had a nicer texture all around.

All were done in my convection oven.

So the paper wrappers made a huge difference in the outcome! Next time they all get paper wrappers, for certain!

Pumpkin time is winding down here at the farm... we're picking cauliflower now, and it's amazingly delicious! And fresh from the back field, how can that be bad?

And folks are loving it!

Oh, and I forgot to list the last winner of "Home on the Range" last week! The winner from "Isabo's Yellow Rice" was Lynne Feuerstein!

Congratulations, Lynne!

And hey, if anyone knows of a recipe that was popular about 30 years ago... maybe less... for baked cauliflower coated with mayonnaise and covered with seasoned corn flakes for crunch, let me know... I'm not sure how it was done, but I remember loving it... and never finding a recipe for it. I'd love to find it right about now!!!

Tipping my Double S cowboy hat to youse!

Ruthy loves what she's doing, and she's pretty sure it shows because she's living her dream of being a

published author, solving all kinds of problems in books (especially the ones so tough to solve in real life!) and she loves chatting with readers, writers and snuggling small kids and puppies... Although today, her resident baby love will be showered on 24 BABY CHICKS coming to the farm... and she's going to try really hard to keep the little darlings alive! She might be tempted to post "No Foxes Allowed" signs around the farm!

Visit her website ruthloganherne.com or friend her on facebook or @ruthloganherne on Twitter, and she promises to not get political!

YES!!!!