Muffin Mondays: Chocolate Chip Muffins

It's been a long time since I've posted, but not for lack of things to post. Trust me, I have a backlog of things waiting to be posted. It's also not because I've lost interest-- on the contrary, I log on every day to check out the blog. So why have I been a stranger? Well, for the past two weeks, I have been in the south of Israel working for my "adopted" family while they are working on a program. The internet in the house is practically nonexistent, save for a couple of bars that go in and out. Pretty unreliable. Needless to say, it's almost impossible to upload photos. To my shock and surpise, I managed to get these few photos up and so I'm posting. These are the Mini Chocolate Chip Muffins that I made when I went to Jerusalem on a day off to hang out with A. It was quite fun. We went to a bead store and made each other keychains, watched Friends and a movie. I baked pizza for dinner (my first opportunity to bake in two weeks!!) and decided to make a late night snack, these muffins, with what she had around in her apartment cupboards. This recipe is adapted from the excellent Israeli book on chocolate called, More Chocolate. They are made with cream, and are therefore extremely decadent, but you can feel free to substitute milk. I made these muffins mini in her silicone muffin pan. I must say though that I can't stand silicone and I wouldnt recommend it to anyone. It's hard to get the muffins out and they dont brown as well because they obviously lack the properties of metal. In any case, these were still delicious muffins, with a silky texture and a creamy flavor. They are so yummy, rich and delicate that you could easily bake the batter in a greased cake pan and call it a cake. Although the batter is assembled as a quick bread, it is fairly loose, which results in the lovely crumb. Cake-like, indeed.

Mini Chocolate Chip Muffins
adapted from More Chocolate

280 grams flour
180 grams sugar
15 grams baking powder
chocolate chips
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
250 ml cream
1/4 cup milk
50 ml oil

Preheat the oven to 350. Grease well two mini muffin pans or one regular pan. Dont use silicone!

In a bowl, combine all the dry ingredients,and whisk well to combine.Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients, and add the eggs, cream, milk and oil.

Blend well without overmixing. The resulting batter will be quite loose. That's ok. Scoop the batter as neatly as you can into the cups.

For mini muffins bake ten to fifteen minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Remove from the oven and cool five minutes. Remove the muffins from the cups and place on a wire rack to cool completely. Enjoy with friends or for a decadent breakfast!