The Stupid Muffins, variant: Chocolate, Breakfast

Let's say it's finally cold enough to turn on the oven (Which, in the blizzard southwest, it currently is). 

photo by Don Michael Watenpaugh, 12/27/15 Edgewood, NM
originally published on KOAT.com

And, for the sake of argument and completely hypothetically, let's pretend your picky-eater son is wanting breakfast and expressing it by repeatedly turning down every presented option while insisting that he is, and I quote, "literally starving!"   Maybe it goes something like this.  Hypothetically.

     I'm HUNG-GREEEEEEEEEEEE (hands at throat, eyes rolling up into back of head, tongue poking out the side)  

     Do you want eggs?

     No.

     French Toast? Pancakes?

     No.

     Cereal? Bagel?

     (dramatic pause...)  Noooooooo! So Hungry! But not hungry for that!

     Ok, What are you hungry for?

      (hands drop from throat) Maybe how about candy?

     Yeah, not gonna happen, sweetcheeks.  Apples and peanut butter?

     (hands snap back to throat) Noooooo!  So Hungry!

     Ok, go grab the kindle and let's look for something to make

And let's say you stumble upon a recipe for chocolate breakfast muffins that has your formally dying-from-hunger son marching around the living room like a professional half-time band leader, chanting Muf-fins! Muf-fins! Muf-fins!  You know, hypothetically. Here's what you might want to do in that situation: 

You make 

the stupid muffins. 

Preheat the oven to 350.  By the way, this is a fantastic way to warm up the kitchen floor on cold mornings for those of us too lazy to go put on socks.

Make yourself a cup of coffee. Because nothing happens before coffee. 

Assemble your ingredients. Seriously, pull everything that you're going to use out of the cabinets and fridge to make sure they are At-The-Ready!  You don't want to get floury fingerprints over all your cabinets, do you? Or worse. You could forget to take the butter out of the freezer and then when you go to melt it in the microwave quickly because you lacked forethought, it somehow explodes and then you have to interrupt muffin making to clean a hot buttery mess from the inside of it. Hypothetically.

Assemble your accouterments.  Same reason. Minus the exploding. Be sure to pronounce that Ah-Coo-Truh-Mah. It makes a difference.*  

Dry Ingredients. sift these together in one bowl		Wet ingredients mix these in a separate bowl
2/3 cup cocoa powder		2 large eggs
2 cups flour		3/4 cup milk
1 teaspoon baking powder		1 1/4 cups light brown sugar**
1 teaspoon baking soda		2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3/4 teaspoon salt		2 teaspoons vinegar
		1/2 cup butter, melted; or 1/3 cup vegetable oil

Other ingredients - add these last
1 cup chocolate chips
1 scoop of Fiber Boost (optional)***
1/2 cup Textured Vegetable Protein (optional)***
sparkling white sugar or pearl sugar, for topping (optional)

Mix wet ingredients into dry ingredients.
Add the other ingredients. Mix some more.
Pour into muffin tin or silicon molds or whatever you got that's oven-proof and muffin-esque.
Bake for 20-25 minutes or until the toothpick you poke in the center of it comes out clean. Assuming you can find the toothpicks you hid way back in the cabinet before the muffins char to a smoky black mess, because you never use toothpicks for anything but baking these days anyway. And really, how often does THAT happen?

* It doesn't make a difference.  It just amuses me.
** Ok, smartypants. Sugar is not a wet ingredient. Fine. But trust me, it does so much better when you dissolve it with the wet ingredients before mixing with the dry

*** Face it. I am making my son chocolate muffins. For BREAKFAST. You bet your sweet asiago I am going to sneak some likeness of nutrition in there somehow.