DesignsandEvents: A Chocolate Chip Muffin Experiment

Hey! Are you hanging in there? This is getting tough, isn't it? I know we have to do it, but it is truly getting difficult doing this stay-at-home thing. I am really missing my family. However this week in order to keep myself busy, I decided to do some baking; something I do not normally do. So, I pulled out one of my old church cookbooks and set out to put my own spin on one of the recipes written inside.

The original recipe was for blueberry muffins but, since I didn't have any blueberries and I am trying to use "what I have", I decided to make the recipe into a chocolate chip muffin recipe. I like chocolate chip muffins better than blueberry ones anyway :).

As you can see, this cookbook has been lovingly used. Years ago this was my go-to cookbook. Pretty much every recipe I tried was really good! That is my plug for church cookbooks. I really do think they have the best recipes. (The mention of Jordan Marsh tells you how old this cookbook is :-|)

Since I am not a chef or baker by any means, this is not a good step-by-step tutorial. It is more of a "what not to do" instructional guide. But, blogging is about what you are up to at the moment and this is what I have been up to :). Plus, how could you not like chocolate chip muffins, right?

First, you cream a 1/2 cup of butter and 1 1/4 cup of sugar together. Cream until fluffy.

Next, you beat in one egg at a time, two in total. This was my first mistake. I misread the recipe and beat the eggs in a side bowl and added them all at once. That might have been my first mistake but let's press on.

Next, I mixed the dry ingredients together ↓. This included 2 cups of flour, 2 tsp. baking powder and 1/2 tsp. salt. You are supposed to sift them together but, I haven't sifted anything in years so, I disregarded those instructions :). That could be where the next mistake was made. Hmmm...

The next step was to mix in the dry ingredients alternately with a 1/2 cup of milk into the batter. That step I did just as planned. I think.

Next I was supposed to add in the blueberries but, as I have said, I didn't have any blueberries. I had chocolate chips and I put in the WHOLE bag, all 12 ounces and everything. I thought at the time that was way too many chips but by then, it was too late. Haha!

I mixed in the chocolate chips by hand with a wooden spoon.

Then, I searched my cabinets and found these Valentine muffin liners. I thought they were prettier than the plain white ones I also found. Hearts are always in season 💖

I filled all the muffin tins I had with the batter. The recipe made 18 muffins.

I then sprinkled some turbinado raw sugar on top of the batter...

placed the muffin tins in a 375 degree oven...set the oven timer for 25 minutes and then proceeded to talk to my daughter on the phone until the buzzer rang.

When I looked in the oven for the first time in 25 minutes, the muffins looked pretty toasty on top. I rechecked the recipe and discovered that you were supposed to use large muffin tins. I do not own large muffins tins. That's ok but I should have adjusted the cooking time for small tins. If I hadn't been on the phone, I might have realized this earlier than I did :/

The end result was slightly overly browned muffins that had not risen to the height that you would have expected with a recipe that was supposed to mimic Jordan Marsh muffins of old.

When I thought about it, I came up with a few reasons why my baking adventure had failed so miserably.

1. I should have beaten in one egg at a time.

2. I wonder if the baking powder was past its prime and, perhaps, had lost its potency.

3. Should I have sifted the dry ingredients?

4. I should have paid closer attention to the muffins while they were in the oven. They may not have risen but, at least they wouldn't have been overcooked.

Whatever the reason was for my failure, I do not know. So, why am I sharing this whole debacle with you? I truly was not going to when I took the muffins out of the oven and saw how they looked.