Manic Muffins for February

Last month I posted a recipe for a muffin mix that you could make up in advance and have on hand for those manic mornings when you wanted something quick and satisfying. If you didn't make up a batch of mix then, you can now. Here's the link to the original recipe. 

This month's adaptation of the original recipe features two yummy additions: cherries and chocolate, plus a little addition to sprinkle over the top to finish them off.

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February has two big holidays. One, Valentine's Day, is the more celebrated, but the other, President's Day, gives the day off! I think most of us teachers appreciate President's Day more than Valentine's Day because we get tired of the sugar coated frenzy of children who've been eating chocolate all day and are anxious about who might or might not like them. Don't get me wrong: I love chocolate, just not when it's affecting the already radical mood swings of a middle school student.

Cherries are associated with George Washington because of the lovely myth of our future president refusing to tell a lie as a small boy. Although this story is undoubtedly apocryphal, it's still a good excuse to eat cherries in February.

The cherries I chose to use are dried bing cherries, available from Trader Joes. These are big and juicy, and I love to use them in winter salads, sprinkling them over dark greens along with sliced almonds and goat cheese. They're good to just eat straight from the bag, too. 

I chop them until they're about the ​

size of raisins, then mix them with a little of the dry muffin mix. This step keeps the chopped cherries suspended in the batter so they don't sink to the bottom of the muffin cups. 

I sprinkled a little bit of cinnamon sugar over the top of each muffin. The difference it made was subtle, but I think pleasant. You can sprinkle any remaining cinnamon sugar over buttered toast if you're feeling nostalgic. I store mine in a glass jar intended for parmesan cheese.

The addition of cherries and chocolate stretches the recipe a bit. Instead of getting 12 muffins, I got 16.

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Cherry Chocolate Manic Muffins

Preheat oven to 350. Line muffin tins with paper liners.

2 eggs
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1 cup water
1/2 cup oil

2 3/4 cups manic muffin mix

1 cup dried cherries
1 TBS. manic muffin mix
1/2 cup mini chocolate chips

1/4 cup sugar
1 TBS cinnamon

Chop cherries. Stir together cherries, 1 TBS dry muffin mix and chocolate chips and set aside.

Mix together sugar and cinnamon and set aside.

Mix together eggs, vanilla, water, and oil in a bowl. Add muffin mix and stir until no lumps appear. Blend in cherries and chocolate. Fill muffin tins 3/4 full.

Scoop up 1/8 tsp cinnamon sugar and sprinkle over two muffins. Continue until each muffin has about 1/16 tsp. sugar sprinkled over it.

Bake for 18-20 minutes, or until golden brown.