blue artichoke

Sundays are the only day of the week that I don't feel a need to accomplish something. Maybe it's the Protestant work ethic that makes me feel guilty for sitting around on any of the other six days of the week, but Sunday is a day of rest, and I do my best to uphold that tradition.

I usually make muffins on Saturday afternoon, so GC and I can sleep late on Sunday and have breakfast already prepared when we wake up hungry. This morning we had peanut butter chocolate chip muffins. What a treat! So sweet and decadent when warm and dripping with butter, it was like waking up to eat dessert. We don't always have such sweet treats for our Sunday muffins; last week we had some uber-healthy Orange Bran Flax Muffins packed with all sorts of healthy grains, but also delicious in a righteous, start-the-day-right sort of way.

These peanut butter chocolate chip muffins were really easy to make. I halved the recipe because I had only 1 c. of my homemade Bisquick left, and didn't feel like making more. My Bisquick was sort of old, I made it last September, and I was afraid it wouldn't have enough oomph to make the muffins rise because the mixed batter was really runny. I added some extra flour (maybe 1/4 cup) and a pinch of baking powder to thicken the batter and ensure proper leavening. I guess that was a good decision, because the muffins turned out just right. After the Chocolate Chip Cookie Snackdown, where tasters overwhelmingly preferred the dark chocolate chips, I've pretty much banished semisweet chocolate chips from the house. I always prefer dark chocolate to semisweet, so I substituted dark chocolate chips for the semisweet called for in the recipe. The batter was mixed all in one bowl, so there was little clean-up afterwards. The most difficult thing about making these muffins was waiting until this morning to try them. When I make them again, I think I'll add more peanut butter. I liked the crunch from the peanuts, but the peanut butter flavor was surprisingly subtle, and overwhelmed by the chocolate chips. That's not a bad thing, of course, but peanut butter and chocolate are such a great flavor combination; I want it to be a bit more balanced. The recipe title claims that these are good muffins for freezing; I can't see that I'd ever have any leftover to test that claim.

Freezer-Friendly Peanut Butter-Chocolate Chip Muffins

Prep: 10 min., Bake: 24 min.

2 cups all-purpose baking mix

1 cup milk

1/2 cup sugar

2 eggs

1/2 cup chunky peanut butter

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup semisweet chocolate morsels

Stir together first four ingredients in a large mixing bowl, stirring just until dry ingredients are moistened. Stir in the peanut butter and vanilla just until blended; stir in chocolate morsels. Spoon batter into lightly greased paper-lined muffin pans, filling two-thirds full.

Bake at 350° for 24 minutes or until lightly browned. Remove from pans; serve warm.

Note: For testing purposes only, we used Bisquick Original All-Purpose Baking Mix.

Yield: Makes 16 to 18 muffins

Southern Living, APRIL 2006