Cappuccino Muffins

I'm in a breakfast mood lately.  I'm either eating Mexican food or breakfast food these days.  Oh, and fries.  Because I always have room for fries.

This weekend, I'll be eating a ton of fries.  They're a special at the fine establishment that we lovingly called "The Dirty O" at my college in Pittsburgh.  That's right, folks.  I'm heading back to Pittsburgh for a few days to meet up with some old friends and hang out at all the local hotspots.  There will be pictures...some heavily edited pictures.

While I work on getting those fry pictures for you, you should check out these muffins I made.  They have coffee and chocolate and you can eat them guilt-free in the morning.  That's the best I can do for today, but I think that's pretty dang good if I do say so myself.

Cappuccino Muffins

very slightly adapted from Taste of Home

makes ~12 muffins

Print Recipe

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup 2% milk
• 2 tablespoons instant espresso granules
• 1/2 cup butter, melted
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3/4 cup miniature semisweet chocolate chips

1) Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.  Grease a muffin tin or line the muffin tin with muffin cups.

2) In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt.

3) In a medium bowl, mix together the milk and espresso granules until the coffee is dissolved.

4) Add the butter, egg, and vanilla to the milk/espresso mixture.

5) Fold the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until the wet ingredients are just incorporated.

6) Fold in the chocolate chips.

7) Fill the muffin cups 2/3 full with batter.

8) Bake for 17-20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean.

9) Allow the muffins to cool for 5 minutes before removing from the pans to wire racks.

10) Serve warm.

Notes:

1 - I used paper muffin liners.  I noticed that the paper liners were damp with butter after baking.  I allowed the muffins to cool and then added a second paper liner to hide the original liners and also prevent the eater from getting greasy fingers.

2 - If you are serving this the next day, I would consider warming the muffins before serving.  This freshens them up and makes the muffins softer.