Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Muffins

I've been posting my cooking adventures on Facebook, and one of my more recent recipes garnered a whole bunch of attention. So, without further ado, here is my recipe for:

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Muffins

I adapted this recipe from the Northwest Harris County Texas A&M Mother's Club Recipe Book (whew! what a long name!).

You need:

1 1/2 cups of boiling water

1 cup of quick cooking oats

1/2 bag of mini chocolate chips

1/2 cup butter (one stick)

3/4 cup of sugar

3/4 cup packed brown sugar

2 eggs

1 1/2 cups whole-wheat flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

Cupcake pan liners.

Combine oats in boiling water and let sit for about 20 minutes (do not stir).

Meanwhile, in a bowl, cream the butter, sugar, and brown sugar.

Add the eggs one at a time.

Add oat mixture.

Stir together flour, baking soda, and salt and add to the creamed ingredients.

Add chocolate chips.

Line cupcake pans with paper liners and add enough batter so that the cup is about 3/4 of the way full (these don't rise much, so you don't need that much room).

Bake at 350 for about 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the muffin comes out clean.

Voila!

A couple of notes on this recipe:

1. The original recipe calls for all purpose flour. I used whole-wheat because I like the texture better, but either will work.

2. I don't think that you need as much butter as I put in (the original recipe uses margarine, but let's face it, margarine is made out of questionable ingredients). I'm going to try and use maybe 1/2 stick and 1/2 applesauce next time and see what happens (and who doesn't love apples and oatmeal?).

3. The original recipe has you melt the chocolate chips into the hot water/quick oats mixture so that you end up with a sort of swirly chocolate thing going on. I prefer pockets of chocolate rather than swirly chocolate, so there you go.

Enjoy!