recharged

I’m the first to admit- I am a big whiny baby. When the tough gets going, I will moan and bitch with the best of them. Most of the time, I can get by with shouting a couple of expletives here and here, but this past week, hell has rained down on me. During these times, I don’t even like to show my face to my mother. Poor woman, I bet she thinks she lives with the devil incarnate every now and then.

You see, school is quickly coming to a close. I mean, the weeks are just going by quicker than I can fathom. Normally, this is a a good thing, but that ain’t the case right now. From projects to tests to assignments to papers… My head gets dizzy and my heart starts to palpitate irregularly fast just thinking about it.

The simple things I enjoy like reading till midnight, drinking obscene amounts of coffee while taking my daily afternoon walk, spending countless hours perusing the bookstore and Sephora (can you see where my paychecks end up?!) are pushed to the backburner so I can concentrate on the “important” things. You know, like what gamuts and postscript language mean, and why guest editorials are so important. Bleck, gag me already.

It’s a fact that all work and no play makes me one crazy and neurotic biznatch so I labeled my Friday as a “play day”, devoid of anything school-related. Fully equipped with watching Regis & Kelly and baking these chocolate chunk muffins while staying in pj’s. All I need now is a handy dandy man servant to serve me my cups of coffee and I’d be all set.

The best part about these muffins is that the batter is reminiscent of brownie batter, milky with chunks of the bittersweet chocolate sprinkled everywhere. I believe that this muffin beats out any store-bought bakery you can find because of two things: the pure chocolate flavor, and the light crumbs. This muffin won’t make you sick nor will it send your blood sugar on a rollercoaster ride. Not to mention that these babies last or quite some time. It’s Friday now and they are still yummy and fresh.

If I could wake up every day to these deep dark and devastating chocolate muffins, I swear I’d be a happy girl. Rich chocolate muffins, moist from the buttermilk, speckled with bittersweet chocolate chunks. Consider me to be the next presidential candidate because I believe I just found the answer to all the problems in the world. The oil crises and religious outcry in the Middle East? No problem, let me bake up these babies and we’ll have it resolved by lunch time. But alas, I don’t carry the weight of the world on my shoulders and instead, I am stuck trying to finish out the last weeks of this semester with some shred of sanity. Don’t worry though, if I go mental, I will down two of these and let the sounds of Regis and Kelly drone out my professor’s voice.

Chocolate-Chocolate Chunk Muffins
from Baking: from my home to yours

Ingredients:
3/4 of a stick (6 tablespoons) unsalted butter
4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
2 cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder, sifted
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cups buttermilk
1 large egg
2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Directions:
Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Butter or spray the 12 molds in a regular-size muffin pan or fit the molds with paper muffin cups. Alternatively, use a silicone muffin pan, which needs neither greasing nor paper cups. Place the muffin pan on a baking sheet.
Melt the butter and half the chopped chocolate together in a bowl over a saucepan of simmering water; or do this in a microwave. Remove from the heat.
In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt. In a large glass measuring cup or another bowl, whisk the buttermilk, egg and vanilla extract together until well combined. Pour the liquid ingredients and the melted butter and chocolate over the dry ingredients and, with the whisk or a rubber spatula, gently but quickly stir to blend. Don’t worry about being thorough-a few lumps are better than overmixing the batter. Stir in the remaining chopped chocolate. Divide the batter evenly among the muffin molds.
Bake for 20 minutes, or until a thin knife inserted into the center of the muffins comes out clean. Transfer the pan to a rack and cool 5 minutes before carefully removing each muffin from its mold.

Yields 12 regular sized muffins, 24 if you use mini muffin tins.