Irresistible Double Chocolate Muffins/ Christmas Cranberry Muffins

Chocolate always seems safe. In my entire life, I think I've met less than five people who don't like chocolate. I've been trying to get into flax seed and wheat germ, but I've only used them in smoothies so far. So, of course, I found a recipe incorporating all three of those things.

Combine flour, flax seed, wheat germ, baking soda, baking powder, cocoa powder, cinnamon, and chocolate chips in a large bowl.

Chocolate and chocolate chips. That's such an awesome site. I already knew it would turn out well.

In another bowl, beat the buttermilk, pumpkin puree, brown sugar, egg, and vanilla until smooth.

Yeah, buttermilk. Now I have a container of buttermilk in my fridge not getting used. I guess I'll have to find a way to get rid of it soon.
I really don't know why they always say to mix the dry ingredients and the wet ingredients in separate bowls. It's all getting mixed in one big bowl eventually.

Gently stir the wet ingredients into the dry, mixing just until combined.

The texture isn't what I would like it to be, but there's nothing I can do about that. It's probably caused by the grainy ingredients.

Spoon equal amounts of batter into muffin cups.

The batter is very thick, so the muffins will probably be dense after baking.

Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean, about 20 to 30 minutes.

I left them in the oven a little too long, so the tops were a little hard. I don't think anyone minded because they got eaten. Maybe my consumers were extra forgiving because it's double chocolate.


I wanted to bake something for the holiday season, so I searched for "Christmas muffin recipes". I got lots recipes involving cranberries, but I have no idea what cranberries have to do with Christmas. I decided to make Christmas cranberry muffins since I had all of the ingredients except one.

Chop 1 cup cranberries coarsely

I've never used cranberries before except for that once time a couple years ago when I made cranberry sauce. What? They expect me to cut them up?

Place them in a small bowl, stir in 2 tablespoons of sugar and let them sit for 30 minutes.

I threw them in the blender. Some of them are still mostly whole, so I fished those out and cut them up.

In a large bowl mix the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. In a second bowl beat together milk, vanilla, melted butter and eggs. Add this to the dry ingredients and mix with a few strokes, only enough to blend.
Fold in the cranberries (and their juice, if any)

And at this point, I started eating it. The batter was extremely sweet, which was great for balancing the sourness of  the cranberries.

Fill greased muffin cups 3/4 full and bake at 400°F for 20 to 25 minutes.

Everyone loved these muffins, except one girl who doesn't particularly care for healthy-type things. She tasted a chocolate one and said "EW!" It was pretty hilarious.