The Stress Baker: Chocolate Chip Muffins from The Joy of Baking

This is bad...really bad. Most people binge eat or shop or rant out loud when they are stressed but me? I bake. I remember days after coming home from work and baking muffins - 3 batches of them! I made so many combinations 3 years ago - pear and chocolate, raspberry and white chocolate, chocolate and apricot, banana and chocolate, blueberry, mixed berry and so on. But my absolute favorite remains to be Chocolate Chip Muffins.

When I was back in Manila, my aunties asked me to bake muffins as Christmas give-aways. I made 4 different kinds of muffins - lemon, strawberry, banana and chocolate chip. Everyone had their favorite - my aunties love the lemon flavored one, my cousins either the banana or strawberry. It seems like it was only me that really liked the classic chocolate chip flavour. This muffin, to me, tastes more like a cake than a muffin. Especially when it's warm from the oven, I can imagine this small piece as a slice from a round cake pan, the chocolate just melting as I cut off a piece. It's just heavenly.





I followed the exact recipe from The Joy of Baking - except that I added 1 tsp of instant espresso powder and 1 tsp of pumpkin spice. My apartment smelled like the cafe 2 doors down and the best part is - the scent is actually coming from my oven. I couldn't wait to dig in so I didn't wait for 10mins for a muffin to cool down. I simply had to!

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