Chocolate Chip Muffins

If you haven’t noticed yet, my kids enjoy cooking. Correction, they enjoy baking! Mixing, pouring, snacking on chocolate chips before I’m ready for them, all key to the baking process. One of their favorite things to eat are Chocolate Chip muffins. We tend to make these more in the evening when we have enough leftovers from the night before, but not enough to be full, so the muffins are nice to fill us.

The only problem with kiddie Sous Chefs is sometimes things get broken. Little Boy managed to crack his first egg (not on purpose), and the egg promptly fell on the floor. It would have made a cute picture, but I didn’t want him to know he was cute in breaking an egg, or he might do it again, so we cleaned up and proceeded with a new egg. He didn’t touch the second egg, now that he knows they can break, he was very careful.

Like all good muffins, the secret is in the muffin top, once the muffin batter has been added to the muffin cups, I sprinkle with cane sugar and two chocolate chips each. We use this as a bit of a counting game, the kiddies get 5 chips to eat while we cook, and the rest have to go either in the batter, or on top. If I didn’t ration them, they would eat the entire bag.

 

 

 

 

 

 

What you’ll need:

1 cup AP flour

¼ cup Almond flour (this is key to the texture, in Kroger it can be found in the organic section near the specialty flours and spices, in Whole Foods, it’s in the baking aisle)

1.5 tsp baking powder

¼ tsp salt

4 TBSP Cane sugar + more for dusting

4 TBSP Brown sugar

½ tsp vanilla

1 egg

¾ cup milk

1/8 tsp almond extract

1/8 cup olive oil

¼ cup chocolate chips (remove 12, to save for garnishing the top)

Start by mixing your flours, baking powder, salt and sugars together, set aside.

 

Now, add your vanilla, egg, milk, almond extract and olive oil together, mix.

 

 

 

Now for the hard part (not really), combine the dry and the wet ingredients until mixed, but don’t over mix it.

Stir in the chips. Then put the batter, right here. . .

Use a large cookie scoop to scoop into the muffin pan. I LOVE silicon bakeware, I know a lot of people hate it, but I think it’s the best thing ever. No need to use spray, extra oil or muffin cups, just add the batter, bake and they come out clean every time.

Now, enlist the assistance of your little friends and add two chocolate chips per muffin, that’s ONE, TWO. . .STOP!

Now sprinkle with some extra cane sugar. Make sure it’s the chunky kind, some stores sell only the fine stuff, that doesn’t have the same effect on top, you want the crystallized stuff for a slight sugary crunch.

 

Bake for 20 minutes at 400 degrees. I recommend enjoying about 2 minutes after they come out of the oven.

This recipe makes 6 muffins.