Gooooood Morning Saturday! (Chocolate Muffins)

Alright...waking up early is NOT my thing. But I'm getting used to being awake before 6:30 (6:14 this morning) with the kiddo, so I figured I might as well make the best of it (or bake the best of it as the case is ;-))...

Hungry yet? I sure was...and my house smells of chocolate and is all warm and toasty (which is why my screen door is now open...I'm waiting to see how long it will take the neighbors to come knocking on my door ;-))!

Young Flash says "Chocolate YES!"

 This is the first time that I've had to think about the recipe I was making and make slight changes to it. The original recipe was missing the instructions for one of the ingredients, and the ingredient list was in an awkward order. So I followed the basic premise and the ingredient list, and made the following recipe:

Ingredients:
2/3 cup of baking cocoa.
2 cups of flour.
1/2 cup of sugar.
2 teaspoons of baking soda.
1/2 teaspoon of salt.
2 large eggs.
1 1/3 cups milk.
1/3 cup of vegetable oil.
1 teaspoon of vanilla.
1 cup of chocolate chips. (divided)

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350*. Spray your muffin pans with non-stick cooking spray. ((I suppose you could use muffin liners, but the cooking spray worked really well, the final muffin isn't sticky, so I had no problems popping the muffins out of the pans. I used 2 mini-muffin pans (48 muffins) and 1 regular muffin pan (12 muffins), which worked out perfectly.))
2.  Combine the dry ingredients in a large bowl.
3. Whisk the wet ingredients together in a separate bowl. Add to the dry ingredients slowly, mixing constantly. (I used a wooden spoon to get the mix basically moist, then whisked the batter together to make sure all the liquid was well integrated.)
4. Add 1/2 cup of chocolate chips and mix. Scoop into muffin pans. Top the muffins with the rest of the chocolate chips.

Mini-muffins topped with chocolate chips!

5. Bake for 10-15 minutes, or until a toothpick (or fork) stuck in the center comes out clean. Remember that the mini-muffins will take much less time to cook than the big muffins!
6. Cool on a rack before removing from the pans, then cool completely on the racks. (By cooling the pan on the rack, away from the oven first, the muffins don't over cook while cooling in the pan, and you don't burn your hand off trying to take the muffins out of the pans.)
7. ENJOY!

These muffins made Saturday worth being awake! The recipe tastes a lot like a basic chocolate cake, and would probably make a *delicious* chocolate layer cake with yummy frosting! (Might have to try that this afternoon ;-))