Baking

The babies are still baking away. Here we are at 39w, 1day. Poo on all those people who had the nerve to tell me that 'twins come early'. Although you predicted that our babies would end up in the NICU, you were blissfully w-r-o-n-g. I feel blessed to have a supportive husband, care providers, and an online group of moms all due in April who encouraged good health upkeep, education, and a positive attitude; although part of life is luck, these factors certainly played a part in evading premature delivery. Our babies, apparently, like to bake. Let's just hope the timer is up soon! People are really starting to gawk at me in public now - ha ha!

Julian and I had a good weekend. Saturday we went to the gorgeous Stanford University campus and to their art museum, which offers free admission, an important factor when you are playing the 'halve-your-income-while-doubling-your-family-size' game in CA! The museum houses fairly impressive rotating exhibits in addition to the permanent collections. We saw some ornate wooden masks from Namibia's indigenous peoples and also a collection of landscape paintings by American artists of the late 1800s/early 1900s. Many of the paintings depicted North Eastern wild lands such as the Adirondacks, the Catskills, the White Mountains, and Acadia, which left me longing for the forests of New England. After the museum we went SHOPPING at the Stanford Mall, a bourgeois display of designer boutiques and upper-market shops. However, Julian did find a pair of thongs (hooray) and some new dungarees. And lastly, we trucked over to a diner for some hamburgers - YUM!

The baking theme (besides babies) has been buttermilk for the past two days. Yesterday I happened upon a fantastic buttermilk corn bread recipe (just add 1/4 cup sugar to the dry ingredients), which we greedily ate for dinner along with BBQ pork chops, and fresh from the farmer's market golden beets and also sauteed greens - the beet tops and rainbow chard. Julian was surprised to find that he likes the taste of fresh beets!

If you like chocolate, buttermilk, and muffins, you absolutely must bake this recipe for chocolate-chocolate chunk muffins. I just love 'em, because they aren't overly sweet and are very moist and dense. Best when warm from the oven, or just pop in the microwave after they've cooled. The house smells amazing at the moment, because I just baked a double batch of these (and ate two already... oops!).

Chocolate-Chocolate Chunk Muffins
Makes 12 muffins

3/4 stick (6 tablespoons) unsalted butter
4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
2 cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder, sifted
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cups buttermilk
1 large egg
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 370 degrees. Butter or spray the 12 molds in a regular-size muffin pan, or fit the molds with paper muffin cups. Place the muffin pan on a baking sheet.

Melt the butter and half of the chopped chocolate together in a bowl over a saucepan of simmering water, or in a microwave. Remove from the heat.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt. In a large glass measuring cup or another bowl, whisk the buttermilk, egg and vanilla extract together until well combined.

Pour the liquid ingredients and the melted butter and chocolate over the dry ingredients and, with the whisk or a rubber spatula, gently but quickly stir to blend. Don't worry about being thorough; a few lumps are better than over-mixing the batter. Stir in the remaining chopped chocolate. Divide the batter evenly among the muffin cups.

Bake for about 16 minutes, or until a thin knife inserted into the center of the muffins comes out clean. Transfer the pan to a rack and cool for 5 minutes before carefully removing each muffin from its mold.

Disclaimer: This is not my muffin :)