Breakfast: May 2004 Archives

When it's a chocolate muffin, what keeps it from being a cupcake? The muffins I made last night, from Mollie Katzen's Sunrise Cafe weren't really too sweet, but they were nice and moist. I have the advanced uncorrected proof of Katzen's newest cookbook, but I think it's time to get a real copy. I've made one stinker from it, but I mostly love the ideas I get: different cooked grains for breakfast, with fun flavorings like Chai, maple or orange, savory and sweet baked goods, roasted or stewed fruit, tofu and cheese scrambles, hashes, veggies like roasted mushrooms or creamed spinach, wild rice pancakes with mushrooms and goat cheese, blinzes.

But I had some ricotta in the fridge I needed to use up, so I made these muffins. It made a huge batch, 12 muffins with a panful of minis made with the extra batter. I mixed the dry ingredients (2 1/3 cups flour, 1/4 teaspoon salt, 2 teaspoons baking powder, a heaping 1/2 cup cocoa powder and 1 cup each sugar and chocolate chips) in one bowl, then combined 1 cup ricotta with 2 eggs in another. Added 1 1/3 cup milk and 1 tablespoon vanilla to the wet ingredients, then added wet to dry, drizzling in 4 tablespoons melted butter and folding it all together until it was thoroughly moistened. Baked in a 12-muffin pan at 350 degrees for 25 minutes. They're moist, not too sweet with lots of chocolate chips throughout. When I tested them with a toothpick, I kept hitting chocolate chips, which made me think, at first, that the muffins weren't done, but I kept poking until I just got moist crumbs attached.